President Barack Obama placed a call to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Tuesday to urge a vote on a “clean” government funding bill that would end the shutdown, according to a White House readout of the conversation.
Boehner has argued that such a bill could not pass the House unless it includes other reforms, despite media reports to the contrary.
The White House also said that Obama told the speaker that he is “willing to negotiate with Republicans — after the threat of government shutdown and default have been removed – over policies that Republicans think would strengthen the country.” Boehner’s spokesman Brendan Buck characterized the call slightly differently.
“The president called the speaker again today to reiterate that he won’t negotiate on a government funding bill or debt limit increase,” Buck said in a statement.
Here’s the White House readout of the call:
Late this morning, the President telephoned Speaker John Boehner from the Oval Office and repeated what he told him when they met at the White House last week: the President is willing to negotiate with Republicans — after the threat of government shutdown and default have been removed – over policies that Republicans think would strengthen the country. The President also repeated his willingness to negotiate on priorities that he has identified including policies that expand economic opportunity, support private sector job creation, enhance the competitiveness of American businesses, strengthen the Affordable Care Act and continue to reduce the nation’s deficit.
The President urged the Speaker to hold a vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate-passed measure that would re-open the federal government immediately. Citing the Senate’s intention to pass a clean, yearlong extension of the debt limit this week, the President also pressed the Speaker to allow a timely up-or-down vote in the House to raise the debt limit with no ideological strings attached. He noted that only Congress has the authority to raise the debt limit and failure to do so would have grave consequences for middle class families and the American economy as a whole.
