President Barack Obama strongly reiterated Friday his vow not to negotiate on whether to raise the debt ceiling.
During a White House press conference CNN’s Brianna Keilar asked the president if he was open to negotiating with House Republicans over raising the debt ceiling next time the country reaches its borrowing limit.
“Oh, Brianna, you know the answer to this question. No, we’re not going to negotiate for Congress to pay bills that it has accrued,” Obama said.
The president then pivoted to praising House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his Senate counterpart, Patty Murray (D-WA) for crafting a bipartisan budget deal.
“Here’s the good news, I want to emphasize the positive as we enter into this holiday season: I think Congressman Ryan and Sen. Murray did a good job in trying to narrow the differences and actually pass a budget that I can sign,” Obama said. “It’s not everything that I would like obviously.”
Obama noted that the plan still includes some across-the-board spending cuts that hit services that could help create jobs like education and transportation.
“But, it was an honest conversation, they operated in good faith and given how far apart the parties have been on fiscal issues, they should take pride of what they did,” Obama said of Murray and Ryan.
