Faced with approaching deadlines related to the US federal budget and debt ceiling, President Barack Obama is embarking on a series of tours to pressure Republicans in the Congress to act and avert new crisis situations like the ones witnessed in the recent past.
While the new American fiscal year begins on October 1, the US Government is expected to hit its borrowing limit somewhere between early September and early October. Obama will be in US Midwest this week, kicking off the economic series by unveiling “some new ideas”, even as the Congress prepares to adjourn for its month-long recess just a week later.
“The President thinks Washington has largely taken its eye off the ball on the most important issue facing the country,” Obama’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said, adding: “Instead of talking about how to help the middle class, too many in the Congress are trying to score political points, re-fight old battles and trump up phony scandals.”
“In a couple of months, we will face some more critical budget deadlines that require Congressional action, not showdowns that serve only to harm families and businesses — and the president wants to talk about the issues that should be at the core of that debate,” said Obama’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer. Obama will outline steps Congress can take and identify measures he can initiate on his own, adding: “He’ll talk about the progress we’ve made together, the challenges that remain and the path forward,” Pfeiffer said.
But House Republicans are not promising any easy path for the White House. “We welcome the president’s focus on the economy, but given that so many are still struggling after nearly five years, it’s clear his agenda of higher taxes and higher spending isn’t the answer,” said a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner himself in a separate interview to CBS has put it to Obama that the way to get the US economy moving again is by stopping unnecessary regulations and bringing the federal deficit under control. He spoke of “this new normal of slow economic growth” with no increase in jobs and wages remaining frozen. Attacking the White House, he said: “We’re squeezing the middle class. And I would argue the president’s policies are getting in the way of the economy growing, whether it’s Obamacare, whether it’s all these needless regulations that are coming out of the government.”
The two sides have already locked horns over Obama’s ambitious Immigration Bill, with House Republicans making it clear they will not take up the White House-backed Senate Bill on this subject, but come with their own variants. The Speaker, despite being pressed repeatedly in the CBS interview, refused to say if the House version of immigration overhaul will include a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants, which is the main thrust of the Obama proposal. Boehner took the stand that the Immigration Bill passed by the Senate was too “massive” and did not contain enough “serious triggers” to guarantee border security. He said the House would deal with the issue “in chunks”, but dodged the question if the measures would include the pathway to citizenship.