WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner yesterday wasted no time renewing the fight with President Obama over spending cuts, pointing to disappointing new unemployment numbers as proof that federal debt is holding back America.
“Too many Americans are still out of work and Washington has too much debt,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement after the Labor Department reported that 2012 ended with the jobless rate stuck at 7.8 percent.
“Our oversized and overspent federal government is a drag on economic growth and job creation, and has burdened every American with a $50,000 share of its debt — and rising,” declared Boehner.
He challenged Obama and Senate Democrats to work with the Republican-led House to “solve these problems,” and he promised that the House would forge ahead alone to slash spending and reform entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid.
“These are the keys to unleashing robust job growth and securing a better future for our children,” said Boehner.
The tough talk about federal spending, coming the day after the new Congress convened and Boehner was re-elected speaker, rang out like the opening bell in a prizefight.
The White House and Congress are circling each other for another brutal bout over raising the United States’ $16.4 trillion debt limit, which Congress must approve by late February or risk default.
Republicans don’t want to approve more debt without major spending cuts and entitlement reforms.
They are determined to curb spending this time, after failing to win any meaningful cuts in the humiliating fiscal-cliff deal, in which the GOP surrendered its long-standing opposition to tax increases.
But Obama has demanded a clean bill to raise the debt limit, keeping separate the debate over spending and entitlements.
He also warned Republicans not to repeat the debt-limit battle of 2011, which led to the creation of the fiscal-cliff crisis and the first-ever downgrade of the US credit rating.
“We really are playing with dynamite with the debt ceiling,” said Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
While Obama vacationed in Hawaii, Krueger made the rounds on cable TV news shows to beat back a Republican push for spending cuts as part of a debt deal.
He accused Congress of playing “Russian roulette with the debt ceiling” in 2011.
“We saw job growth grind to almost a halt. So the economy will certainly do better if Congress does what it normally does, which is raise the debt ceiling without drama,” said Krueger.
The Labor Department report showed that about 155,000 jobs were added to the economy, which is a steady pace, but it wasn’t enough to reduce the stubbornly high unemployment rate.
Despite the job growth and unchanged jobless rate, the number of unemployed actually rose in December, up 164,000 to 12.2 million, according to the report.