WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is ready for difficult concessions to reach a deficit deal, but GOP lawmakers must first commit to higher tax rates on the rich and specify what additional spending cuts they want, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.

"There's no path to an agreement that does not involve Republicans acknowledging that rates have to go up for the wealthiest Americans," Geithner said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Geithner presented congressional leaders Thursday with Obama's postelection blueprint for averting the "fiscal cliff," the combination of hundreds of billions in tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect beginning in January if Washington doesn't act to stop it. But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, dismissed the plan as "not serious," merely a Democratic wish list that couldn't pass his chamber.