House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced Tuesday that he will only support raising the debt ceiling next year after lawmakers identify adequate spending cuts, mirroring the position he took during the same debate last summer.
“When the time comes I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase,” Boehner said during a fiscal summit in Capitol Hill. “This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance.”
Boehner noted that he was open to stop-gap measures if lawmakers could not come to an acceptable agreement, a sign that next year’s negotiations may go smoother than last year’s zero hour struggle.
The Speaker noted that like last summer, he would not accept tax increases as part of the deal. In fact, Boehner said, the House will press to extend the costly Bush era tax cuts prior to this year’s election. Boehner argued that allowing the cuts to expire will have a crippling effect on the economy.
Last year’s debt ceiling negotiations ended after both chambers agreed to form a 12 person “supercommittee” tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next decade or face automatic cuts among military and domestic spending in 2013. The supercommittee ultimately failed, leaving both parties at odds over how to thwart the automatic cuts.
