Fresh from the long legislative fight to prevent a
"fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts, President Barack Obama
warned on Saturday that the United
States could not afford further budget
showdowns this year or in the future.
Obama, who returned to Hawaii for a
family vacation shortly after the House of Representatives passed a compromise
bill on Tuesday, said in his weekly radio and Internet address that the new law
was just one step toward fixing the country's fiscal and economic problems.
"We still need to do more to put
Americans back to work while also putting this country on a path to pay down
its debt, and our economy can't afford more protracted showdowns or
manufactured crises along the way," he said in the address, broadcast on
Saturday.
"Because even as our businesses
created 2 million new jobs last year - including 168,000 new jobs last month -
the messy brinkmanship in Congress made business owners more uncertain and
consumers less confident."
Government data released on Friday
showed the U.S.
unemployment rate remained at 7.8 percent in December.
Lawmakers in the Senate and the House
passed legislation this week that raised tax rates for the wealthiest Americans
while making Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class permanent.
It was a victory for Obama, who
campaigned for re-election largely on a promise to achieve that goal.
Republicans have indicated that they
are ready for another fight over the U.S. debt ceiling. Representative
Dave Camp, delivering his party's weekly address, warned, at least indirectly,
that they would expect spending cuts in return for raising the ceiling again.
"Many of our Democrat colleagues
just don't seem to get it. Throughout the fiscal cliff discussions, the
president and the Democrats who control Washington
repeatedly refused to take any meaningful steps to make Washington live within its means," Camp
said.
"As we turn our attention toward
future discussions on the debt limit and the budget, we must identify
responsible ways to tackle Washington 's
wasteful spending."
Obama repeated that he would not
negotiate on the debt ceiling, hoping to avoid the 2011 conflict that led to a
credit rating downgrade and pushed the country close to default.
"If Congress refuses to give the United States
the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global
economy could be catastrophic," he said. "Our families and our
businesses cannot afford that dangerous game again."
Obama said he was willing to do more on
deficit reduction and suggested that the hike in tax rates for wealthy
Americans was not the last tax change he expected to make.
"Spending cuts must be balanced
with more reforms to our tax code," he said. "The wealthiest
individuals and the biggest corporations shouldn't be able to take advantage of
loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans."
No comments:
Post a Comment