Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders told President Barack Obama on Friday to consider side-stepping Congress if no agreement could be reached next month on raising the nation’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling.
And two Republican congressmen asked Obama in their own letter that the president to “be open and honest with the American people” on the nation’s finances in his State of the Union address next month.
In their letter, Reid and other top Democrats said Obama should “take any lawful steps” to avoid defaulting on the debt — “without Congressional approval, if necessary,”
The Washington Post reports.
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Republicans have said they would not raise the debt limit without dollar-for-dollar spending cuts — including those to such entitlement programs as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
On Friday, GOP legislators rejected the notion of sole action by the president.
“The Democrat leadership, hiding under their desks and hoping the president will find a way around the law on the nation’s maxed-out credit card, is not only the height of irresponsibility, but also a guarantee that our national debt crisis will only get worse,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Post in a statement.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said Americans “will not tolerate” hiking the debt ceiling without spending cuts.
Obama has said he considers raising the limit, which the nation will hit in February, an obligation of Congress because doing so allows the government to pay off the debts it has already incurred, the Post reports.
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Meanwhile, Republican Reps. Tim Griffin of Arkansas and Cory Gardner of Colorado said in their letter that Obama should specifically detail in his Feb. 12 State of the Union speech the rise in the national debt, the per-person share of the expense — as well as the state of solvency for Social Security and Medicare.
“It seems to me in order for us to address our big fiscal problems — debt, deficit, and entitlement reform — we are going to have to have the American people on the same page,” Griffin told the Daily Caller.
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