Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters Tuesday that the House will have to address the debt ceiling soon, but dodged a question about whether he would rule out attaching an increase in the borrowing limit to Obamacare changes.
“We do have to deal with the debt ceiling here in the coming months and no decisions have been made about how we’re going to proceed,” he said. “But encouraged that we are going to proceed — no one wants to default on our debt.”
The statutory debt limit deadline is Feb. 7, after which the U.S. will be able to take extraordinary measures to continue borrowing. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote a letter to Boehner last month saying those measures will be exhausted by “late February or early March 2014.”