McConnell: Obama needs to be ‘more bold’ in tackling the debt

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called on President Obama to
“be more bold” in tackling the national debt.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, McConnell discussed the
impending budget battles that face the White House and a
GOP that controls the House and is strong in the Senate.

{mosads}The top-ranking GOP senator was disappointed that the president failed
to outline his plan to deal with the long-term debt and deficit
problem in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

McConnell pointed to a Washington Post editorial on Sunday morning that excoriated Obama for failing “to present a credible plan for
long-term debt reduction.”

The Kentucky senator promised that Republicans would send an austere
budget to the White House.

“Our annual deficit, completely out of control; we’re going to send
the president a lot less. We’re going to allow him to sign on to a lot
less spending than he recommended the other night and that he’s likely
to send us in the budget,” McConnell said before adding that
Republicans would be willing to negotiate entitlement reform with the
administration.

“We’re happy to sit down and talk about entitlement reform with the president. We know Social Security is in trouble. It was just
announced by CBO this week. We know Medicare is on an unsustained
path; they took half a trillion dollars out of it to fund this healthcare program that they enacted. Look, we need to get serious about
this,” McConnell said.

Over the next few weeks, Congress faces two major deadlines related to
keeping the government running. Insiders fear that a government
shutdown could ensue if those deadlines are not met.

With Republicans in the House insisting on returning to 2008 spending
levels — before the bank bailout and economic stimulus plan — many in
D.C. worry that a government shutdown could be in the near future.

Though Obama discussed freezing current spending levels for
five years in his State of the Union address, Republicans say that
solution isn’t stringent enough.

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Sunday sounded the alarm about the possibility that Republicans would fail to negotiate such austere cuts with the Democratic administration before the
March 4 deadline, prompting a
government shutdown.

“But to just stay in your corner and say, ‘It’s my way or I’m shutting
down the government,’ that could lead to terrible, terrible problems.
And I would plead with my new Republican colleagues in the House who
seem to want to do this, that that is playing with fire. Please don’t
do it,” Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

On three occasions, “Meet the Press” host David Gregory pressed McConnell on the
issue of closing the door to a government shutdown.

McConnell responded with the same answer on all three attempts. “We
have two opportunities coming up. We have the continuing resolution on
March 4. And then the president has asked us to raise the debt
ceiling. So we have two opportunities here to do something important
for this country on the issue of spending and debt. We ought not to
lose that opportunity.”

Schumer warned of the potential consequences that a government
shutdown could have on a recovering U.S. economy.

“They are getting wary because of the large debt we have, which we
have to get down, but if they feel that people are willing to shut
down the government, you could risk the credit markets really losing
some confidence in the United States Treasury, and that could create a
deeper recession than we had over the last several years — God
forbid, even a depression,” Schumer said.