Politics

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifying at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in April. (Brendan Hoffman - Bloomberg) Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner cautioned Republicans on Tuesday not to raise questions about whether the United States will once again raise its legal debt limit late this year, saying the economy is already starting to feel the effects of the potential fiscal cliff confronting Congress at the end of the year.

Geithner’s comments came as the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill began reacting to a new ultimatum from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who told an annual conference hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation later Tuesday that Republicans will insist again this year that any increase in the debt limit be matched dollar-for-dollar with equal spending cuts.

Republicans made the same demand in the negotiations that led to an economy-rattling partisan showdown over the nation’s last debt ceiling hike last summer.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he agreed with Boehner’s framework for requiring cuts equal to any debt ceiling increase.

“A request of the president to ask us to raise the debt ceiling ought to generate a significant response to deal with the problem of deficit and debt,” he said.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney responded that a “charade” like last summer’s fight over the issue would hurt the economy.

“It can’t possibly be the case that the right prescription for what we need to do right now is to engage in the kind of political brinksmanship that, unfortunately, congressional Republicans engaged in last year,” he said.

Boehner told the group that the dollar-for-dollar match is necessary to force Washington to embark on the kind of fiscal restraint and entitlement reform that will slash deficits over time and stabilize the economy. The prepared remarks call the debt ceiling vote an “action-forcing event” that will require Washington to tackle its tough choices.

But speaking to the same group, Geithner warned Tuesday that it is not “responsible” to call into question whether the nation will pay back money it has already borrowed by raising the debt limit.

House Speaker John A. Boehner plans to demand deep cuts in government spending in exchange for raising the federal debt limit, setting the stage for another tense standoff with Democrats over the soaring national debt.

In remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday at the Peter G. Peterson fiscal summit, Boehner (R-Ohio) welcomes the next battle over the debt limit as an “action-forcing” opportunity to rein in government spending and said he will “again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt-limit increase.”

“This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance,” Boehner says, according to highlights of the speech provided to the Post. “If that means we have to do a series of stop-gap measures, so be it. But that’s not the ideal. Let’s start solving the problem.”

The director of the Secret Service will be called before a Senate committee May 23 to provide details about the investigation into the Colombia prostitution scandal that has resulted in the dismissal of nine employees.

Director Mark Sullivan has not spoken publicly on the misconduct that took place last month in Cartagena, Colombia, where a dozen agents were implicated in a night of heavy carousing two days before President Obama arrived for an international summit.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, announced the hearing Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Charles K. Edwards, the acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, who is conducting an independent investigation, also will be called to testify, Lieberman said.

This undated U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) image shows an aerial view of the Pentagon in Washington, DC. (AFP/Getty Images)

The Republican-led House has agreed to replace deep budget cuts scheduled to hit the Pentagon in January with a series of reductions in funding for food stamps, Medicaid and regulation of the financial sector.

The House approved the package that would save $242.8 billion over 10 years on a party-line 218 to 199 vote. No Democrats supported the package; sixteen Republicans opposed it.

Republicans said it was designed to replace a portion of the $110 billion cut that will hit the federal budget in January if Congress doesn’t act.

Democrats who control the Senate are opposed to the House bill — Thursday’s vote amounted more to a vision statement by Republicans to define how they want to deal with the specter of the automatic budget cut.

That hit would come virtually across the board but would be split evenly between military and domestic spending and is the first phase of a $1.2 trillion budget cut Congress designed to go into effect automatically if a special bipartisan committee established in last summer’s debt deal failed to come up with a more palatable way to curb red ink.

As congressional Democratic leaders embraced President Obama’s support for gay marriage, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) distanced himself from the efforts of some Republicans to rein in federal support for the issue and instead said that GOP leaders would stay focused on the economy.

Boehner, who reiterated his belief that “marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” declined to publicly support the efforts of rank-and-file Republicans who pushed approval of two measures Wednesday night hours after Obama’s announcement. He said that he would spend no time talking about the issue of gay marriage.

“The president and the Democrats can talk about all this all they want,” Boehner told reporters at his weekly press briefing, “but the fact is the American people are focused on our economy and they're asking the question: Where are the jobs?”