President Obama said Friday that he won’t sign another stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government running, and instead called on Congress to join him in forging a longer-term deal.
“I will not sign another shortsighted spending bill like the one Congress sent me this week,” Obama said during an afternoon news conference at the White House.
“This is not the way the United States should be operating,” he said. “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 potential crisis. The White House wants a more permanent agreement, particularly because the short-term funding deals keep in place a series of dramatic spending limits.
More important, aides to the president say, Obama views the perennial uncertainty and the last-minute rush to a deal as bad for the U.S.
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, with Democrats 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.
“We cannot cut our way to prosperity,” Obama said.
The talks took on new urgency with the announced resignation of Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and the coming 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 Bakersfield.
Among them could be approval of highway funds as well 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.
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