Stopgaps at end, Obama declares

Do your job, Congress scolded

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Friday he won’t sign another temporary government funding bill after the current one expires Dec. 11, insisting that congressional Republicans and Democrats work out a long-term budget deal with the White House.

Obama said such a deal should lift a freeze on the budgets of both the Pentagon and domestic agencies. Speaking at a White House news conference, he asserted that the U.S. can’t cut its way to prosperity.

“I will not sign another shortsighted spending bill like the one Congress sent me this week,” Obama said. “This is not the way the United States should be operating. Congress has to do its job. It can’t flirt with another shutdown and should pass a serious budget.”

The pledge comes just two days after Obama signed a continuing resolution that will fund the government through Dec. 11, heading off a shutdown.

But Obama called that a “gimmick” that only sets up another crisis. The White House wants a more permanent agreement, particularly because the short-term funding deals keep in place a series of spending limits.

More importantly, aides to the president say, Obama views the perennial uncertainty and the last-minute rush to a deal as bad for the U.S.

On the so-called debt limit, which needs to be raised above the current $18.1 trillion cap by early November, Obama said he won’t repeat a 2011 negotiation over companion spending cuts that brought the nation to the brink of a first-ever default on its obligations.

“We’re not going back there,” he said, adding: “Historically, we do not mess with it. If it gets messed with, it would have profound implications for the global economy and could put our financial system in the kind of tailspin that we saw back in 2007 and 2008. … It has to get done in the next five weeks.”

Congressional leaders also want a longer-term agreement and opened staff-level talks with the White House this week on a possible two-year spending plan.

But Obama and his fellow Democrats differ from Republicans on budget priorities.

On the so-called debt limit, which needs to be raised above the current $18.1 trillion cap by early November, Obama said he won’t repeat a 2011 negotiation over companion spending cuts that brought the nation to the brink of a first-ever default on its obligations.

Democrats are seeking as much as $74 billion in increased spending on education, infrastructure, and other domestic and defense needs, while Republicans want about half as much only for the military.

The talks took on new urgency with the announced resignation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and the upcoming Nov. 5 deadline to raise the nation’s debt limit or risk a federal credit default.

In announcing his plans last week to step down Oct. 31, Boehner said he wants to make deals on several issues before handing off to his successor, widely expected to be House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.

Among them could be approval of highway funds as well as a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, the 80-year-old lending institution that conservatives are trying to shut down as an example of what they call crony capitalism.

Aides to the president say the overall spending plan tops Obama’s priorities in negotiations with Boehner. On Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that cybersecurity legislation and the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank were other top economic priorities for the president in the near term.