“I want to be very clear – I will not sign another short-sighted spending bill like the one Congress sent me this week”, Obama said at a White House press conference Friday.
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President Barack Obama said Friday that he will not negotiate an increase in the debt ceiling as part of budget talks with Congress.
Congress did mess with it in 2013, when Republicans demanded enacting other policies – privatizing Medicare, cutting food stamps – in exchange for a budget deal that raised the debt limit. “We purchased ourselves 10 additional weeks”. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew recently informed Congress that the government won’t be able to pay its bills after October.
“Our own growth could slow if Congress does not do away with a few of the counterproductive austerity measures that they have put in place, and if Congress does not avoid the kind of manufactured controversies that shatter consumer confidence and could disrupt an already-skittish global economy”, Obama said. That is earlier than most on Capitol Hill has thought and means the issue probably needs to be dealt with before House Speaker John Boehner resigns.
President Barack Obama is rejecting Russia’s military campaign in Syria, saying it fails to distinguish between terrorist groups and moderate rebel forces with a legitimate interest in a negotiated end to the civil war.
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Obama said that Boehner’s resignation, which has sparked GOP infighting in a handful of House leadership races, complicated the situation.
