The Obama administration is making its opposition to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) two-step approach to raising the debt-ceiling crystal clear.
President Obama not only only dislikes the Boehner plan, but if somehow it defied all odds and got through the Senate and reached his desk, he would veto it. In a brief yet pointed Statement of Administrative Policy released by the White House Office of Management and Budget Tuesday afternoon, Obama’s senior advisors said they strongly oppose the Boehner plan.
“If [it’s] is presented to the President, the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill,” said the OMB release.
White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked Tuesday why the OMB had yet to outright threaten to veto the Boehner plan if the President was so opposed to it.
“We don’t think it’s going to come to pass so [that question] is a hypothetical,” Carney told reporters.
About an hour later, the OMB released the veto threat language.
On Tuesday Boehner’s plan, which would trade a $1 trillion debt ceiling increase for roughly $1.2 trillion in cuts, seemed dead in the water as Democrats attacked it for going too far and forcing Congress to return the issue early next year and Republicans pilloried it for not going far enough. Some Tea Party-backed GOP members, as well as fiscal conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, are opposing the plan because other packages with deeper cuts and protections against more spending have already passed the House this year.
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