As fear of a government shut down looms in Washington D.C., President Barack Obama says the White House and Democrats have agreed to a $73billion cut originally proposed by Speaker Boehner.
Addressing White House Correspondents on the outcome of the meeting between Republican and Democratic leadership at the White House, Obama pointed out that, “the only question is whether politics or ideology are going to get in the way of preventing a government shutdown.”
Giving details of the tripartite meeting, Obama said, “Speaker Boehner, Chairman Rogers, the Republican appropriations chairman -- their original budget proposed $73 billion in cuts. We have now agreed to $73 billion worth of cuts. What they are now saying is, well, we’re not sure that every single one of the cuts that you’ve made are ones that we agree to; we’d rather have these cuts rather than that cut. That’s not the basis for shutting down the government.
We should be able to come up with a compromise in which nobody gets 100 percent of what they want, but the American people get the peace of mind in knowing that folks here in Washington are actually thinking about them -- because they’re going through a whole lot of struggles right now.”
Responding to question of another short term budget, the President responded this way, “We did it once for two weeks, then we did another one for three weeks.
That is not a way to run a government. I can’t have our agencies making plans based on two-week budgets. I can’t have the Defense Department, I can’t have the State Department, I can’t have our various agencies on food safety and making sure our water is clean and making sure that our airports are functioning, I can’t have them making decisions based on two-week-at-a-time budgets.”
On the implication of all these on the American people, the President stated that at a time when the economy is just beginning to grow, where we’re just starting to see a pickup in employment, the last thing we need is a disruption that’s caused by a government shutdown. Not to mention all the people who depend on government services, whether you’re a veteran or you’re somebody who’s trying to get a passport or you’re planning to visit one of the national monuments or you’re a business leader who’s trying to get a small business loan. You don’t want delays, you don’t want disruptions just because of usual politics in Washington.
Pointing out that he is not ready to blame anyone in case of a government shut down, Obama said thw white House is ready to reconvene the meeting until a solution is arrived at.
According to him, “t right now we’ve got some business in front of us that needs to be done, and that is making sure that we are cutting spending in a significant way, but we’re doing it with a scalpel instead of a machete to make sure that we can still make investments in education; we can still make investments in infrastructure; we can still make investments what put the American people back to work and build our economy for the long term.”
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