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Obama says no to short-term debt deal
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
President Barack Obama makes a statement to reporters about debt-ceiling negotiations. He spoke Tuesday in the James Brady Press Briefi ng Room of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama prodded Congress on Tuesday to reach a sweeping long-term deal within two weeks to raise the nation’s borrowing limit rather than “kick the can down the road” with a makeshift, short-term solution to stave off default. And he declared the agreement must include the tax increases that Republicans strongly oppose.
Obama said he was summoning leaders of both parties to the White House on Thursday to try to get it done and beat an Aug. 2 deadline to avert a financial crisis that could shake economic markets worldwide.
Republicans sounded entirely unimpressed with Obama’s insistence that an attack on federal deficits include tax increases for the wealthy and narrowed loopholes for oil companies as well as big cuts in government spending.
“We’re not dealing just with talking points about corporate jets or other ‘loopholes,’” said House Speaker John Boehner. “The legislation the president has asked for — which would increase taxes on small businesses and destroy more American jobs — cannot pass the House, as I have stated repeatedly.”
Boehner said he’d be happy to join discussions at the White House but predicted they “will be fruitless until the president recognizes economic and legislative reality.”
Obama said he opposed a stopgap, short-term increase, as suggested by some lawmakers. But he stopped short of ruling out a limited extension, and his spokesman Jay Carney later declined to say whether the president would veto such a measure.
Obama renewed his stand that any deal must include not only spending cuts but also new revenue — tax increases vehemently ruled out by many Republicans in Congress.
“We need to come together over the next two weeks to reach a deal that reduces the deficit and upholds the full faith and credit of the United States government and the credit of the American people,” Obama said at the White House.
He said congressional leaders from the House and Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, were being invited to meet on the issue Thursday at the White House.
That would bring the top eight lawmakers together with Obama and top administration financial officials.