Obama would veto any debt-ceiling bill with spending cuts
President Obama would veto any bill to raise the debt limit if spending cuts are attached, the White House said Friday.
“Yes,” spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters when asked whether the president would kill such a measure.
{mosads}It’s the clearest sign yet from the White House that Obama will only accept a clean bill to extend the nation’s borrowing authority before a fast-approaching Nov. 3 deadline.
“We believe this should be done without negotiation, without drama, without delay,” Schultz said. “No negotiations, period.”
Republican efforts to extract concessions from the White House in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling hit a major snag this week. House Republican leaders shelved a proposal that included a number of conservative reforms after it failed to attract enough support.
Out of other options, GOP lawmakers now appear resigned to voting on a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling with less than two weeks left until the Treasury Department says the nation will exhaust its borrowing authority.
In 2011, Obama and congressional Republicans engaged in a high-stakes negotiation over hiking the debt limit, producing across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration.
Since then, the president has refused to negotiate with the GOP over the debt limit, saying he is unwilling to risk the the possibility of a damaging debt default.
“The president absolutely believes raising the debt limit is the bare minimum that Congress can do,” Schultz said. “They just need to pay the bills for a tab they’ve already incurred.”
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