The White House on Monday declined to comment on reports that the Obama administration and the Republican Congress were close to reaching a two-year budget agreement.
Instead, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that while the two sides are talking, they have not nailed down everything yet.
Earnest said the White House has worked “assiduously” to keep the talks private because they are “based on the principle that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.” But since “not everything has been agreed to” yet, “that means nothing is agreed to,” he said.
Obama and Congress are hoping to settle on a two-year budget deal that would outline spending for the rest of the current fiscal year, and FY 2017. Democrats are looking for higher spending levels as a way to get around the “sequester” cuts, while Republicans are hoping to offset that new spending with cuts elsewhere.
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While it seems implied that the pending need to raise the debt ceiling is wrapped up in the spending talks, the White House has rejected that link and said it won’t negotiate over the need to raise the ceiling.
“The president has been clear and this White House has been clear that we’re not going to negotiate over the debt limit,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said on Friday. “[T]his isn’t asking Congress to do anything extraordinary or special. This is asking the Congress to pay bills that it’s already incurred.”
On Monday, Earnest insisted that it was not negotiating over the debt ceiling even though that issue might end up being passed in Congress along with a two-year budget.
“The principle that we have made clear is that the administration will not negotiate” over the debt ceiling, Earnest said. However, he said if the debt limit were part of a broader agreement, that would not be unusual, or mean the White House changed course.
“It is not uncommon for debt ceiling increases to be attached to a piece of legislation that we know will pass Congress,” Earnest said.
The two-year deal that Democrats and Republicans are reportedly closing in on would shore up most remaining budgetary loose ends, including extending highway funding, keeping the government open beyond Dec. 11 and reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, in addition to raising the debt ceiling by Nov. 3.
Earnest also reiterated that Obama will not agree to budgetary “gimmicks” that get the Defense Department around sequestration by funding it through a separate war account not subject to the 2011 Budget Control Act as Republicans propose without granting additional dollar-for-dollar increases in domestic spending.
