He later said Americans expect
“civility, common sense, give and take, compromise.” But he reiterated
he will not compromise on a government shutdown or on the debt ceiling.
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| Barack Obama speaks during a press conference |
“I’ve been willing to compromise my
entire political career,” Obama said. “But I’m not going to breach a
basic principle that would weaken the presidency, change our democracy
and do great damage to ordinary people just in order to go along with
what the House Republicans are talking about.”
He said “we can’t make extortion routine,” saying he was looking out not just for himself, but for future presidents.
Obama spoke with House Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio, earlier Tuesday. Obama has said he will not negotiate
on the health law or the debt ceiling.
Boehner said he does not have the votes
to bring a “clean” debt ceiling vote to the floor, but Democrats have
disputed that 27 House Republicans are willing to vote for a continuing
resolution and a “clean” increase in the debt limit without any
conditions.
The president said “this is about a
Republican obsession with dismantling the Affordable Care Act and
denying health care to millions and millions of people.”
Obama insisted that even if the votes
are not there for reopening the government and a debt ceiling increase,
Boehner should allow it to come to the floor to put each House member on
the record.
“Let’s take a vote in the House,” Obama said. “Let’s end this shutdown right now.”
He said not passing another increase
in the debt limit would “risk a very deep recession,” and prompt
mortgage and student loan interest rates to increase. He also said it
would increase borrowing costs for the United States, so “this would add
to our deficit, not decrease it.”
The government went into partial
shutdown on Oct. 1 after House Republicans passed a third temporary
spending bill which the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected, as it did
two previous bills.
The House GOP first defunded
implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better
known as Obamacare. When the Senate rejected the measure, the House
voted to delay the law for a year, which the Senate also rejected.
Finally, hours before the clock ran
out on Sept. 30, the House voted to allow the rest of the law to go
forward, but removed what Republicans considered tantamount to waivers
for Congress and staff and further voted to delay the individual mandate
to be in line with the employer mandate. Senate Democrats also rejected
this compromise and the government shutdown began.
It resulted in the furlough of about
800,000 federal workers, and also unpopular decisions by the executive
branch such as closing national parks and monuments.
Since the shutdown, the House passed
several provisions to fully fund the national parks, fully fund FEMA,
the District of Columbia, military chaplains and other federal
functions. Again, the Senate refused to take up any of the funding
bills.
Obama said he would not consider any of these measures.
“Here’s the problem. What you’ve seen
are bills that come up where wherever Republicans are feeling political
pressure, they put a bill forward and if there’s no political heat, if
there’s no television story on it, then nothing happens,” Obama said.
“If we do some sort of shotgun approach like that, then you’ll have some
programs that are highly visible get funded and reopened, like national
monuments, but things that don’t get a lot of attention, like those SBA
loans, not being funded.”
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