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John Boehner: No promises on debt limit vote
From Politico...
By Jake Sherman
4/26/11
See also ABC from Politico and County News Online Report
GREENVILLE, Ohio —Speaker John Boehner won’t guarantee a vote on
raising the debt limit, the latest threat in an increasingly high
stakes game of chicken with the White House over whether Congress will
inch closer to letting the nation default on its credit.
Boehner, in an interview with POLITICO here Monday, also demanded that
President Barack Obama give in to Republican demands to slash spending
and dramatically change “the way we spend the people’s money.”
“If the president doesn’t get serious about the need to address our
fiscal nightmare, yeah, there’s a chance it [the debt limit vote] could
not happen,” Boehner told POLITICO after he toured a manufacturing
company in this western Ohio town. “But that’s not my goal.”
The vote to increase the borrowing ceiling beyond the current limit of
$14 trillion has become one of the defining issues for a House
Republican majority that ran campaigns promising dramatic cuts in
government spending. As the deadline draws closer to a debt ceiling
vote, Republicans are starting to sound less compromising in their
stance, even as Treasury officials warn of market calamity and economic
“Armageddon” if Congress refuses a vote.
Boehner laid out several goals for any potential deal on the debt
limit: He is calling for controls on discretionary spending and
altering the nation’s entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid to be
attached to the legislation to hike the debt ceiling.
He was noncommittal about holding a vote on that bill before July 4 —
very close to the deadline by which Treasury says the U.S. will have
hit its borrowing limit.
Boehner’s comments are his strongest to date in the debate over the
debt limit – a stark contrast to his tight-lipped demeanor when he
negotiated with Obama earlier this month over the budget deal that kept
the government open while cutting $38 billion in spending.
The two-week congressional spring break is proving to be a pivotal time
during the first few months of Boehner’s speakership. He’s coming off a
largely successful budget negotiation but he is under enormous pressure
from the right not to offer any concessions on the debt limit — despite
warnings from economists and Treasury experts that failure to raise the
limit will shake global markets.
But while Boehner talks tough on the debt limit, some politically
vulnerable Republicans are facing serious heat in town halls during the
spring recess for their “yes” votes on Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s
(R-Wis.) 2012 budget, which would dramatically overhaul Medicare and
Medicaid.
But Boehner is injecting those politically difficult programs back into
the debate in advance of the debt limit vote, saying that “I think it’s
time to deal with entitlement programs…on the debt ceiling.”
Tax increases, he has said, are a nonstarter.
That message is sure to be met with resistance from Democrats, who are
largely opposed to statutory caps on discretionary spending and like
even less GOP plans to reform Medicare and Medicaid. Most Democrats and
Obama favor raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Read the rest of the story at Politico
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