Obama on the Government Shutdown
John Harwood of CNBC and The Times
interviewed President Obama, who said he was not prepared to negotiate until he
was presented with a “clean bill.”
Published on Oct 2,
2013
Credit - BBC &
CNBC
Obama Doesn't Rule Out Using 14th Amendment
To Raise The Debt Limit
By Mary Bruce |
Saturday, October 6th
2013
ABC News – 20 hours
ago
With the October 17 deadline to raise the debt limit
rapidly approaching, President Obama is not specifically ruling out using the
14th Amendment to increase the nation's borrowing ability if the political
impasse continues and Congress fails to do so, but says he does not expect the
fight to get to that point.
"I'm pretty willing to bet that there
are enough votes in the House of Representatives right now to make sure that the
United States doesn't end up being a deadbeat. The only thing that's preventing
that from happening is Speaker Boehner calling the vote," the president told The
Associated Press in an interview Friday that was released this
morning.
Four days into the government shutdown,
the president reiterated that he is not going to make concessions on his
signature health care law or negotiate with House Republicans until they agree
to reopen the government and raise the nation's debt
ceiling.
"The only thing that is keeping that
from happening is Speaker Boehner has made a decision that he is going to hold
out to see if he can get additional concessions from us," Obama told the
Associated Press' Julie Pace.
"What I've said to him is we are happy
to negotiate on anything," he continued. "But what we can't do is keep engaging
in this sort of brinksmanship where a small faction of the Republican Party ends
up forcing them into brinksmanship to see if they can somehow get more from
negotiations by threatening to shut down the government or threatening America
not paying its bills."
The president went on to criticize some
Tea Party Republicans for seeking out controversy.
"I recognize that in today's media age,
being controversial, taking controversial positions, rallying the most extreme
parts of your base - whether it's left or right - is a lot of times the fastest
way to get attention or raise money, but it's not good for government. It's not
good for the people we're supposed to be serving," he said.
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Republicans see
shutdown fight shift away from 'Obamacare'
Saturday, October 6th
2013
AFP….Michael Mathes
13 hours ago
Republicans acknowledged Saturday that
ending the US government shutdown requires a new game plan.
A handful of Tea Party-supported
conservatives have publicly backed off that fight, that their energy quivering
against Obamacare has not been successful, but instead, caused deep rifts within
the Republican Party. They feel there is need to move on to the
larger issues with need to focus strictly on fiscal debt ceiling of the overall
budget issues.
congressman Doug Lamborn told reporters
during a rare weekend session for the House of Representatives. He
was joined by congressman Dennis Ross, another favorite of the anti-tax,
pro-small-government Tea Party movement. "We're so close to the
debt ceiling that I think the two will continue to be combined as we go
forward."
The White House has
held firm that it will accept no changes to the Affordable Care Act, and Ross
appeared frustrated with his party's failure to adapt to the political reality
that linking Obamacare with the funding of government would be a non-starter;
dismissing that, "The Obamacare
battle I think will live to be fought another
day."
Americans steam over Congress's inability to
keep government open made some Republicans to seek an escape
hatch, to the point of even bucking leadership, to identify in advance some
solution set that could draw enough bipartisan support for reopening government
and raising the debt ceiling.
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