Obama appealed to members of the Business Roundtable yesterday to use their influence with lawmakers to break the stalemate.
“You have never seen, in the history of the United States, the debt ceiling, or the threat of not raising the debt, being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and have nothing to do with the debt,” Obama said in Washington.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged House members in a letter yesterday not to risk a government shutdown and to raise the debt limit in a “timely manner.”
“It is not in the best interest of the U.S. business community or the American people to risk even a brief government shutdown that might trigger disruptive consequences or raise new policy uncertainties washing over the U.S. economy,” Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, wrote in the letter.
Maximize Leverage
Representative Charles Boustany, a Louisiana Republican, said the party is trying to maximize its leverage for the debt ceiling fight.
“You go into that discussion and try to get as much as we can, with divided government,” he said.
Several Republicans, who last week opposed the leaders’ plan to force the Senate to vote on a resolution that would end funding for the health law, now back the latest plan.
“This would be the first time in two years and nine months I actually get to vote for defunding on a must-pass legislation,” Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican, said yesterday.
He said “almost all Republicans” would vote for the plan. Those who don’t “would be those who want a primary opponent in the next election. I don’t think anybody wants to do that too badly.”