President Barack Obama ridiculed House of Representatives speaker John Boehner today for refusing to allow a vote on a funding bill that would end a three-day government shutdown, saying the top Republican in Washington is in the grip of conservative "extremists."
Mr Obama's speech at a construction company in the Washington suburb of Rockville, Maryland, showed there was no sign of movement toward a deal that would reopen the government's doors and allow hundreds of thousands of idled government workers to go back to their jobs.
Mr Obama said Republican conservatives in the House are dead set on killing his signature healthcare law and that he is just as adamant at protecting it from being dismantled or defunded.
"This whole thing is about one thing, the Republican obsession with the Affordable Care Act. That seems to be the only thing that unites the Republican Party right now," he said.
Mr Obama called for a straight up-or-down vote on a funding bill that would permit the government to reopen, but said Boehner is intimidated by the most conservative members of the Republican caucus.
Enough Democrats and moderate Republicans would approve the legislation if it came to a vote, said Mr Obama.
“The only thing that is preventing all that from happening right now, today, in the next five minutes, is that speaker John Boehner won’t even let the bill get a yes or no vote because he doesn’t want to anger the extremists in his own party. That’s all,” the president said.
Mr Obama, who had a heated discussion about the shutdown with Mr Boehner and other congressional leaders at the White House yesterday, mocked a Republican lawmaker for an eyebrow-raising comment.
"We're not going to be disrespected," Indiana Republican Marlin Stutzman told The Washington Examiner newspaper. "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."
Mr Obama said the remark showed what the shutdown drama was about: “This whole thing is about one thing, the Republican obsession with the Affordable Care Act. That seems to be the only thing that unites the Republican Party right now.”
Mr Obama said he is willing to negotiate some changes to the law to improve it, but made clear he would not allow the law to be dismantled.
"It's the law of the land, it's here to stay," he said. Congress passed the healthcare law in 2010.
The shutdown battle is a precursor to a more serious fight over raising the US debt ceiling. America's borrowing limit will be reached by October 17th and the United States will be forced into an unprecedented default on its debt if the debt ceiling is not raised.
Mr Obama said a debt default would throw the US economy back into a recession.
“If we screw up, everybody gets screwed up. The whole world will have problems,” he said, reiterating that he would not be drawn into negotiations over the debt ceiling.
Earlier, the administration said the US economy could fall into its deepest crisis since the Great Depression if Congress does not raise a cap on government borrowing soon and warned it would be impossible to prioritise debt payments over other obligations.
In a report released today, the Treasury Department said a US debt default could force up borrowing costs, weaken investment and curb growth. This could inflict damage on the economy that could last for longer than a generation.
“A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic,” Treasury said.
“The negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.”
Analysts warn the economic mayhem would be even greater if the shutdown merges with a more complex fight looming later this month over raising the federal debt limit, which could cause the United States to miss debt payments.
A senior Treasury official told journalists that favouring bills to creditors over others would be unworkable and the administration was completely opposed to this approach.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill support a plan for the Treasury to prioritise debt payments, as many economists believe a missed payment on government debt could trigger a devastating rout in global markets.
Indeed, analysts have generally believed the Treasury would at least try to prioritise debt payments over other spending on other programs.
The Treasury expects to exhaust its ability to borrow under the nation’s $16.7 trillion debt ceiling by October 17th, at which point the government would be down to its last $30 billion, in addition to new incoming revenues.
The Congressional Budget Office expects the nation could start defaulting on obligations between October 22nd and the end of the month. Large debt payments loom on October 24th and October 31st.
US Treasury debt, long deemed risk-free, is the foundation of the global financial system. Assets around the world use US Treasuries as a benchmark for their value.
Reuters