And for the first time, he signaled that Republicans would come to the negotiating table with the expectation that the White House and Senate Democrats be prepared to discuss major reductions in federal spending — and enact them immediately. That was a sharp shift from Republicans who just last week talked of finding “commonality” on less-ambitious measures.
“Without significant spending cuts and changes in the way we spend the American people’s money, there will be no increase in the debt limit. And the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in the debt limit that the president is given,” Boehner said in an address to the Economic Club of New York at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “We’re not talking about billions here. We should be talking about cuts in trillions if we’re serious about addressing America’s fiscal problems.”
Watch the full video of House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) address to the Economic Club of New York.
The extent of Boehner’s demands was unclear. Aides declined to say over what period the cuts would have to take effect, saying only that they could be achieved on a time frame longer than the life of the debt-limit increase.
Boehner’s terms referred specifically to discussions about raising the debt limit. His speech suggests that Republicans will try to extract as much as they can from that debate, before the parties move on to broader discussions about the nation’s long-term fiscal problems. Democrats had indicated a desire to limit the scope of debt-ceiling talks.
The address preceded a meeting Tuesday afternoon of lawmakers from both parties, Biden and other White House officials. The second such gathering of the bipartisan group is part of an effort to work out a plan aimed at smoothing passage of a debt-limit increase. The meeting at Blair House begins a week-long campaign by the Obama administration to engage lawmakers on the issue. Obama plans to bring all 100 senators to the White House — Democrats on Wednesday, Republicans on Thursday — to begin laying the groundwork for compromise.
The national debt is set to reach its limit of $14.3 trillion within the next week, although Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has told lawmakers that he can keep paying the bills through Aug. 2. The Treasury Department estimates that it will need an additional $2 trillion in borrowing authority to get through the end of next year. Even the relatively austere budget blueprint the House approved last month would require $1.9 trillion in fresh borrowing through September 2012.
Republicans could fashion a debt-limit increase that covers a shorter period, GOP aides said, in which case the cuts needed to pass it would be lower. But such a strategy would require multiple votes to raise the limit before the 2012 election, something many lawmakers in both parties want to avoid.
Geithner and other market experts say that not raising the debt limit would force the United States to default on its obligations, triggering a cascade of negative economic consequences. “Default is the financial equivalent of suicide,” Roger Altman, a private-equity investor who served in Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department, said Monday in a conference call with reporters.
This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post contributors aren’t staff, but may write articles or columns. In some cases, contributors are sources or experts quoted in a story.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
To pause and restart automatic updates, click "Live" or "Paused". If paused, you'll be notified of the number of additional comments that have come in.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
Loading...
Comments