President Obama as Senator Obama voted NOT to raise the debt ceiling when George W. Bush was the President. Now he doesn’t want Congress to vote on the issue.
The Obama administration is asking to eliminate Congress’ role in raising the debt ceiling as part of a fiscal cliff deal, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Roll Call in an interview Thursday.
The White House dispatched Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to Capitol Hill earlier in the day, and his meeting with McConnell clearly did not go well from the Republican leader’s perspective. In a public statement released after the meeting, McConnell said talks “took a step backward.” When asked what that meant, McConnell mentioned the debt ceiling issue specifically.
“I think it was a meeting just to show that there was a meeting,” McConnell said. He said negotiations are in worse shape than they were two weeks ago, when leaders huddled at the White House. “I don’t think they were asking for $1.6 trillion in new revenue [two weeks ago] and they also want a permanent debt ceiling increase,” he said.
