The White House said Monday that President Obama absolutely will not negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt limit, and warned that Republicans shouldn’t put at risk the creditworthiness of the U.S. government by using the debt limit as a lever for other policy goals.
“There’s significant risk associated with monkeying around with the debt limit, and using it as a, you know, as a, essentially, a political football in the midst of a contested leadership race, I think, would satisfy the requirements of describing something as ‘monkeying around,'” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.
Earnest was reacting in part to House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who is trying to succeed Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, later this month. Chaffetz has noted the idea of using the debt ceiling as a way to negotiate other spending changes with Obama.
“When we heard the president, for instance, say that he has no negotiations on the debt ceiling, that’s not palatable to a lot of us,” Chaffetz told MSNBC Monday morning. “We don’t want to continue to have to go to the Chinese to borrow money. We actually want to change the trajectory of spending in this nation and get our fiscal house in order. So we need to internally figure out what bill we’re going to actually put on the president’s desk.”
But Earnest said brinkmanship over raising the debt limit, which will have to be done by Nov. 5 to avoid the risk of defaulting on its debt, “would be unfortunate.”
The best way Republicans can save Americans’ money is to “do the job they are paid to do,” he said.
