President Obama isn’t budging an inch on the ACA, as the White House has threatened to veto any House Republican debt ceiling bill that contains the Vitter Amendment.
According to Politico,
President Barack Obama told House Democratic leaders Tuesday that he would veto debt-ceiling legislation if it includes a provision pushed by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and House GOP leaders that would cut health subsidies for congressional and senior executive branch officials, according to sources familiar with the discussion at a private White House meeting.
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Obama brought up the issue of the so-called Vitter language unprompted, according to one of the sources. The president and congressional Democrats also discussed how to set caps for discretionary spending for next year given the possibility that a short-term spending bill could fund the government for only a few months, and their shared perception of a need to come up with a larger budgeting plan to avoid governing, as Obama often says, “from crisis to crisis,” the sources said.
John Boehner just isn’t getting it. He can’t keep caving to the tea partiers in caucus by devising legislation that is never going to be passed by the Senate, and signed by the president. This is the second time today that the White House has to tell House Republican no to changes on the ACA. The original House debt ceiling idea was immediately rejected by Senate Democrats and the White House because it too demanded changes to Obamacare.
House Republicans continue to inaccurately assume that they can take this crisis down to the deadline, and force Democrats to choose between cutting and gutting the ACA or default. This strategy didn’t work on the government shutdown. It hasn’t worked on the debt ceiling, and it won’t work as the country approaches a default.
Speaker Boehner has to decide whether he is going to follow the Ted Cruz lemmings in his caucus off the cliff and into a default. There seems to be a great deal of fascination with the fact that Boehner can’t get enough votes for his own debt ceiling bill, but the reality is that the Speaker could end this drama right now if he wanted to.
If Boehner sincerely wants to avoid a default, all he has to do is pass a clean CR and debt ceiling extension. Unforunately, Rep. Boehner is more interested in saving his speakership than saving the country. The president isn’t going to budge until Boehner does things the right way. Once and for all, President Obama is not going to pay House Republicans a ransom.
Every second that Boehner wastes on the impossible is another step towards a Republican caused default.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
