Huffington Post...
Obama
Debt Ceiling Press Conference:
President Keeps The Pressure On
By Jim Kuhnhenn
7/15/11
WASHINGTON
-- President Barack Obama
declared Friday Congress has a “unique opportunity to do something big”
and
stabilize the U.S. economy for decades by cutting deficits even as it
raises
the national debt limit ahead of a critical Aug. 2 deadline. He said
was
willing to make tough decisions himself, including trimming Medicare
benefits
for wealthy beneficiaries, but said, “We’re running out of time.”
Obama
challenged Republican lawmakers
to make tough calls, too. He attempted to turn their opposition to any
tax
increases back against them, warning starkly that failure to raise the
debt
ceiling would mean “effectively a tax increase for everybody” if the
government
defaults, sending up interest rates.
Still,
Obama said that “it’s hard to
do a big package” in deadlocked Washington. He said of the Republicans:
“If
they show me a serious plan I’m ready to move.”
The
president spoke at the White House
Friday after five days straight of meetings with congressional leaders
failed
to yield compromise – amid increasingly urgent warnings from credit
agencies
and the financial sector about the risks of failing to raise the
government’s
borrowing limit.
Administration
officials and private
economists say that if the U.S. fails to raise its borrowing limit and
begins
to stop paying its bills as a result, the fragile U.S. economy could be
cast
into a crisis that would reverberate around the globe. Democratic and
Republican congressional leaders agree on the need to avert that
outcome, but
that hasn’t been enough to get Republicans to agree to the tax hikes on
corporations and the wealthy sought by Obama – or to convince Obama and
Democrats to sign onto the steep entitlement cuts without new revenue
that
Republicans favor.
In
a light moment on a day heavy with
economic concern, Obama was asked why he still had hopes that the White
House
negotiations would provide any results, given the lack of success so
far.
“I
always have hope,” he said with a
smile. “Don’t you remember my campaign?”
It
was his third news conference in
two weeks on an issue that is increasingly consuming Washington and his
presidency.
The
president said he was ready to
make tough decisions such as restructuring Medicare so that very
wealthy
recipients would have to pay slightly more. “Things like that would be
appropriate,” he said. “That could make a difference.”
He
said he had stressed to Republicans
that anything they looked at should not affect current beneficiaries,
and he
said providers such as drug companies could be targeted for cuts. The
president
wouldn’t comment when asked whether he would support raising the Social
Security retirement age.
On
Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Democrats
and Republicans in the House emerged from closed-door meetings to
reiterate
their hardened stances. Republicans announced plans to call a vote next
week on
a balanced budget constitutional amendment that would force the
government to
balance its books.
Obama
dismissed the idea, saying, “We
don’t need a constitutional amendment to do that. What we need to do is
do our
jobs.”
Failure
to reach compromise has
focused attention on a fallback plan under discussion by Senate
Republican
leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That plan
would
give Obama greater authority to raise the debt ceiling while setting
procedures
in motion that could lead to federal spending cuts.
Obama
insisted the public was on his
side in wanting a “balanced approach” that would mix spending cuts and
the tax
increases opposed by Republicans.
“The
American people are sold,” he
said. “The problem is that members of Congress are dug in
ideologically.”
He
renewed his pitch for a major
package of some $4 trillion, about three-quarters of which would be
spending
cuts along with about $1 trillion in new revenue.
“We
have a chance to stabilize
America’s finances for a decade or 15 years or 20 years if we’re
willing to
seize the moment,” the president said, adding later that everyone must
be
“willing to compromise.”
“We
don’t need more studies, we don’t
need a balanced budget amendment,” Obama said. He said lawmakers simply
needed
to be able to make tough decisions and stand up to their political
bases.
Meanwhile
the administration
dispatched Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Budget director Jacob
Lew to
meet with House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor at
the
Capitol.
Even
as he prodded Republicans, Obama
also issued a challenge to his liberal base, saying progressives should
be just
as interested in solving the country’s debt and deficit woes as
conservatives.
“It
would be very helpful for us to be
able to say to the American people, `Our fiscal house is in order and
now the
question is what should we be doing to win the future?’” the president
said,
saying that otherwise investments such as more spending on community
colleges
could be dismissed as “more big spending, more government.”
“The
American people do not want to
see a bunch of posturing. They don’t to hear a bunch of sound bites.
What they
want is for us to solve problems. And we all have to remember that.
That’s why
we were sent here.”
The
outline of the McConnell plan was
winning unusual bipartisan support even as some conservatives voiced
misgivings.
Under
the plan, which would require
approval by the House and Senate, Obama would have the power to order
an
increase in the debt limit of up to $2.5 trillion over the coming year
unless
both the House and Senate voted by two-thirds margins to deny him. Reid
and
McConnell were trying to work out ways to guarantee that Congress would
also
get to vote on sizable deficit reductions. The plan also could be
linked to
immediate spending cuts already identified by White House and
congressional negotiators.
Obama
offered measured praise: “It is
constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can’t get
something done let’s at least avert Armageddon.”
But
the president said that
McConnell’s approach only addressed the pressing issue of the debt
ceiling, not
the country’s longer-term deficit woes, and he wanted to handle that as
well.
Read
the story at the Huffington Post
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