House Speaker John Boehner told Wall Street that it will be “arrogant” and “irresponsible” to raise the nation’s debt limit without dramatic spending cuts and changes to programs such as Medicare.
“To increase the debt limit without simultaneously addressing the drivers of our debt — in defiance of the will of our people — would be monumentally arrogant and massively irresponsible,” Boehner will say tonight at the Economic Club of New York, according to excerpts released by the speaker’s office.
“It would send a signal to investors and entrepreneurs everywhere that America is still not serious about dealing with our spending addiction. It would erode confidence in our economy and reduce certainty for small businesses. And this would destroy even more American jobs,” Boehner will say.
The United States is on track to reach its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by mid-May. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned of financial catastrophe, including possibly defaulting on loans, if Congress does not increase the nation’s borrowing authority by early August.
Boehner will repeat his vow that “everything is on the table” in order to reduce the nation’s debt, except for tax increases sought by President Obama and strongly opposed by Republicans.
The speaker will call for spending cuts in the trillions of dollars, “greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority” that Congress will vote on to give the president.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is in charge of the Democratic message, said today that Boehner should be clear that Congress will not play with the debt ceiling.
“There is one standard, and one standard alone for judging his speech,” Schumer said. “Speaker Boehner must provide unwavering reassurance to the credit markets that no matter what happens, he will not allow the U.S. to default on its obligations.”
Since becoming speaker, Boehner has been challenged on his right by lawmakers who got elected in November with the help of Tea Party supporters, who have made controlling federal spending and reducing the nation’s debt their top concerns. Boehner helped negotiate a landmark deal to cut $38 billion for fiscal 2011, but not before the federal government was on the brink of a shutdown.
One challenge for Boehner: 59 House Republicans voted against that budget deal, in part because it did not cut spending as much as they wanted. Some Republicans have been clear that they don’t want to vote to raise the nation’s borrowing authority without deep spending cuts or major changes in fiscal policy to reduce debt.
“We want to see real structural, cultural-type changes tied to this debt ceiling. We’re not interested in a one-off kind of savings, or anything small,” Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., told The New York Times last month. “There has got to be game-changing kinds of changes to get us to vote for it.”
The GOP-led House has passed a 2012 budget that would convert Medicare to a voucher program for seniors, but that measure is strongly opposed by Obama and Senate Democrats.
