President Obama will challenge Republicans to reverse spending cuts and forestall the possibility of a government shutdown at a prominent business group Wednesday, the White House announced.
Obama will join the Business Roundtable, a group representing CEOs, and take questions at its quarterly meeting Wednesday in Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a press briefing Tuesday.
There, he will lay out the administration’s case for a budget deal that lifts caps on federal spending, just weeks ahead of a deadline for funding the government that has executives nervous.
“Instead of playing games with our economic progress and imposing a new set of self-inflicted wounds, Republicans in Congress need to do the job the voters have asked them to do,” Earnest said. “And that is to pass a budget that reverses the harmful cuts known as the sequester and of course avoids another government shutdown.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the leaders of the Business Roundtable said that eliminating uncertainty over government funding and other fiscal matters was a top priority for the group.
“CEOs need to be assured that the government is not going to be shut down,” said Randall Stephenson, the chairman and CEO of AT&T who is serving as the chairman of the Business Roundtable.
Appearing at the group’s meeting will provide Obama with an opportunity to align with businesses who agree with him on easing spending restraint and avoiding a shutdown, even though they often agree more with Republicans on taxes.
Among CEOs’ top priorities, Stephenson said, are avoiding a shutdown and resolving the fate of temporary tax provisions that will shape business’ decisions.
As for the automatic spending cuts that will kick in if spending comes in above the limit, Stephenson called it “a sledgehammer approach” to a spending problem, where a more targeted approach is appropriate.
Conservative Republicans are seeking spending levels for fiscal 2016 that keep the spending caps in place, while providing additional funds for the Pentagon through a war account not subject to the caps. Obama, however, has called for budget talks to raise the caps for defense and non-defense spending, offsetting the added spending with tax increases or spending cuts in future years.
So far, Republicans have not agreed to such negotiations.
Earnest on Tuesday sought to portray the possibility of a fiscal crisis as a threat to an economy that is otherwise gaining in health.
On the anniversary of the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Bros. during the financial crisis, Earnest presented a series of news headlines from the depths of the recession and more recently, showing the gains in employment and in the banking industry and the decline in foreclosures.
