House speaker Boehner: 'We are not going to default' on debt

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker John Boehner promises that the GOP-controlled House won't miss a late-February deadline to increase the government's borrowing cap.

The Ohio Republican said today "we're not going to default on our debt" and he held open the possibility that the House could consider a debt-limit increase that's "clean" of any GOP add-ons.

Boehner is struggling to win enough support among Republicans to pass a debt-limit measure without help from Democrats and has discarded ideas like attaching a provision mandating Obama administration approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to the must-pass measure.

The government reaches its borrowing limit on Friday, and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew is employing bookkeeping maneuvers to buy a few weeks' time for Congress to act.