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Subscribe to RSSUPDATED 2:27 PM ET: House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday repeatedly challenged the president's willingness to go against his own party on issues that include reforms to social programs and spending.
"I think he'd like to deal with it [fiscal problems], but to do the kind of heavy lifting that needs to be done, I don't think he's got the guts to do it,” the Ohio Republican said in a meeting with a small group of reporters for nearly an hour Tuesday morning. “He understands there is a spending problem. He understands that we need changes and reforms, and we need to solve these problems."
When pressed about the severity of that statement, he modified, saying the president does not have the "courage."
Washington is in the midst of yet another fiscal crisis, facing a political showdown over so-called "sequestration," the self-imposed round of across-the-board spending cuts to domestic programs and the Pentagon. The sequester was supported by both the White House and Congress as a way to encourage lawmakers to find common ground. Instead, they have been mired in a stalemate, unable to find an equitable solution for both sides.
"I am not suggesting that this is easy,” Boehner said, “but what I am suggesting is that he is the President of the United States. This is the biggest threat to our society."
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, repeats his call for President Obama to submit a budget proposal to Congress, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013.
President Obama campaigned on raising taxes on the wealthy and got that in the showdown over the fiscal cliff. He wants more revenue -- from what he says are "loopholes and deductions" for the wealthy. Republicans have balked at that notion, saying he already got all the revenue he was going to get.
The White House has accused Boehner of walking away from "grand bargains," deals to reduce the country's deficits, in both 2011 and 2012 because he could not sell it to his base. Boehner's office vehemently disagrees with that notion, instead pointing the finger back at the president.
Republicans also feel as if they have already given in and do not want to give more, particularly after passing the tax increase and punting on the debt ceiling, voting to suspend it temporarily until the Democratic-controlled Senate passes a budget, something it has not done in years.
But those maneuvers have not been without staunch GOP opposition and misfires. President Obama and Boehner were thought to be, once again, close to a deal when Boehner abruptly announced "Plan B," an initiative pushed by House leadership, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), that would have let tax cuts expire for millionaires. But Boehner pulled the measure after he realized it did not have majority support within his conference.
President Barack Obama is expected to ask for more tax revenue and fewer spending cuts during Tuesday's speech but can his plan pass Congress. Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, Bloomberg Businessweek's Josh Green and Bloomberg View's Margaret Carlson discuss.
Instead, Boehner issued a statement urging President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass something to avert the fiscal cliff. Boehner eventually brought the Senate-passed measure to the House floor. It passed without majority GOP support.
On immigration, Boehner claimed in the meeting, "The thing I am most concerned about immigration reform is the president getting in the way. Sometimes I think he'd rather have an issue than a solution. Here's the guy who four years ago said he was going to have immigration reform, and he's done absolutely nothing for four years. I hope the president will play a constructive role."
Democrats say that prior to the 2012 presidential election, they have faced a brick wall of opposition on immigration, despite President Obama's promises, especially from House Republicans. In December 2010, Senate Republicans filibustered the DREAM Act, which would have given a pathway to citizenship for children brought to the United States illegally. President Obama supported the measure, and it got 55 votes, five short of the required 60 to overcome a filibuster.
But since Obama's re-election, in which he won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, Republicans have sounded a different tune on immigration.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who will give the GOP response and is leading an immigration-reform effort in the Senate, dropped by the meeting as well.
"I didn't mean to interrupt--,” Rubio said, as he looked for a cup of coffee.
When asked if he is feeling any pressure tonight, he gave a big smile and said, "No."
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Boehner-projection????? Your favorability ratings are what? Congress 33 bills to repeal Obamacare, really?
You are all aware that the cuts are actually an approximately 2% decrease in the increases of spending over the next few years. So really all this squabble is for show and the cuts are necessary. We cannot sustain an almost $17 trillion debt. Any person that tells you the government is capable of cutting the debt by spending more is at best illogical, and at the worst dangerous. Please look at the situation with a clear mind and decide for yourself. The two-party lines are in most cases, illogical and fiscally dangerous. Free thinkers solve problems, they do not point and blame.
Now tell the truth. In that photo, doesn't Boehner look like the guy at the party who has had a little too much to drink and is trying to pick fight?
Boehner doesn't even have the guts to hold the teabagger congressmen accountable for their actions. I'll definitely watch the speech tonight. There is always the chance of a crazy teabagger congressman shouting at the president during the speech.
Sure hope so!
sharky,
Yeah, I remember someone calling Ohama a liar last time. Turned out later to be true too. Hard to imagine.
It's the prior administration fault or crap that's us. Well well it's the sequestrations fault or crap that was my plan.
- obama
Mr. president we need leadership from you please show some for a change.
he can't..obama the ass is not a leader...he is a rigid ideologue incapable of any leadership......only fools follow him....
He doesn't know how to lead
Compared to Boehner, who has a big gut...yes!
BOONER has no guts for anything. He and the rest of the House and Senate have been sitting on their hands for the last 4 years not doing a damn thing. Both Sides Get off your A$$es and get to work. And stop your whining.
well obama is a coward....he accepts responsibility for nothing......obama is an ass......
Yeah!! I guess jonny boner must be nipping on the hooch... obama has the guts but jonny boner doesnt have the baseballs.... he has no respect for the pres or for himself. you republicans would cut spending and put the country into another recession and you would blame the pres. boner go home, resign... get out of politics. you stink.... cantor too...
Guess what: Mr. Boehner and the GOP walked away from a 4 trillion dollar cut and they do not have the GUTS to close tax loopholes (Remember Romney) and take away billions of dollars from big oil tax subsides!!!!!
left a special kind... Hello Lynn
Come on Boehner, have the guts to say the truth: Obama has no balls!
If I were Boner, I'd be very careful about attacking a black man's manhood!
Boehner doesn't have the guts to cut military spending.
The Sequester does just that.
Baldenario: just read your comment. You are so right about what the Pres. can do. However, it has never stopped these unprincipled men (?use the term loosely) from lying before. And, this will also rile up their base to give them time to mix some more Kool Aid for them.
John Boehner is the biggest sleazebag since Newt Gingrich. He allowed his GOP buddies in Congress to go on break earlier and for longer last year than any congress in 26 years. He has fought tooth and nail to just keep right on spending and raising the debt limit, and is now trying to make it appear that Obama is the cause of the problem. The GOP allowed Bush II to let the economy go in the toilet by letting stock brokers and banks rip off the American public for years, and now Boner wants to blame it on the DEMs. What a bunch of pompous, arrogant clowns! It's time to fire everyone in Congress and start over.
Why do Rethuglicans have such a problem with facts and truths and science. Boner is afraid of the President getting in the way when that is all the idiotic Rethuglican Congress has been doing, ironic isn't it
Hmmmm. Boehner says our president has no "guts" er I mean "courage". Well, Mr. Boehner, I seem to remember a grand deal you and our president made a couple of years ago and it was you who had no courage to and couldn't defend your deal to your party in the House. You came back and said no deal after telling the President you had one. Our President went to the Dems in the House and Senate and told them of the deal, and they backed the President even though many of them hated the deal. The base also supported the deal even though we all hated it and thought in secret that you can't make a deal with those who don't bargain in good faith. Well, those of us who thought that were unfortunately, not disapointed. It is you Mr. Boehner who has no courage.
we all know obama has no balls.....no integrity...no leadership...obama is an ass......
mc,
That is an insult to asses everywhere.
I just want John Boehners pancake makeup budget. Oh yes, and the trowel he uses to apply it. It would certainly take care of my "personal deficit".
Cut spending but don't touch our Repub Pork Barrel projects !!!
We need to tax the rich like we use to !!!!!!
Boehner is GOP's problems!!! along with the House of Representatives!!
Republicans are not the party I use to vote for!!!!!!!
They are now the TEA-PUBLICANS!!!!!!!
Paul Craig Roberts served in Reagan Treasury Dept, and also worked as editor at the Wall Street Journal. He knows about what he speaks. He described the horrendous economic situation for the US Economy. He puts blame on Wall Street and US Corporate executives who use Asian labor in outsourcing, rendering the US nation of workers poor.
I just can’t get over the Greed of the Rich!! They are not investing in America!! They’re going to wait till Tea-Publicans drive America into the ditch again, and pick up the pieces!!!
America’s problems started August 1971!!
These are things Republicans don't want you to remember!!
With inflation unresolved by August 1971, and an election year looming, Nixon convened a summit of his economic advisers at Camp David. Nixon then announced temporary wage and price controls, allowed the dollar to float against other currencies, and ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. This meant our money was now worthless!!! Inflationary dollars!!
The first signs of impending trouble are the exploding budget deficits themselves. They began, of course, under the parlous economic stewardship of Ronald Reagan. Reagan cut the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest of Americans from 70% to 38%. He promised it would spur an orgy of investment and rocket the economy to new levels of production and prosperity. Instead, his supply side economics did the exact opposite. It produced the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
During Reagan's administration, the unemployment rate declined from 7.5% to 5.4%, with the rate reaching highs of 10.8% in 1982 and 10.4% in 1983. Reagan also earned the nickname "the Teflon President", in that public perceptions of him were not tarnished by the controversies that arose during his administration.
Output fell 2.2% in 1982 while budget deficits soared. When Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt stood at $995 billion. Twelve years later, by the end of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, it had exploded to $4 trillion. Reagan was a B grade movie actor and a doddering, probably clinically senile president, but he was a sheer genius at rewarding his friends by saddling other people with debts.
Bill Clinton reversed Reagan’s course, raising taxes on the wealthy, and lowering them for the working and middle classes. This produced the longest sustained economic expansion in American history. Importantly, it also produced budgetary surpluses allowing the government to begin paying down the crippling debt begun under Reagan. In 2000, Clinton’s last year, the surplus amounted to $236 billion. The forecast ten year surpluses stood at $5.6 trillion. It was the last black ink America would see for decades, perhaps forever.
I think we need to tax YOU more.....
Yes, tax and spend. That is real government at work. Just don't tax me. Tax the other guy.
Parrot.
Boehner is 100% CORRECT!! What spending cuts has Obama proposed????????????????
What spending cuts have the conservatives proposed, in detail? Obama has over $1T in cuts in the 2011 bill.
@woodbutcher.....really???? Please list those "cuts"?:
1.
2.
3. .........silence
Both parties lack the guts to take back from the private banker-owned Federal Reserve the power to create the countries money. Lincoln and Kennedy tried. The creators of the countries money rule the country. Republicans and Democrats are their puppets
What he meant to say is Barry doesn't have a pair. Gutless would be a step up for Barry. Bring it on libturds. Watcha got to say about your gutless, castrated, mindless, messiah? No budget in five years. Laser focused on his own navel. What a nutless tool. How he has kids is a mystery.
Boehner is my congressman and I have heard him speak in too many instances and he isn't smarenough to criticize Obama. If he spent as much time listening as he does play golf, maybe he
would learn something.....then maybe not. If it wasn't for his rich friends locally, we could get rid of him.