OBAMA SAYS HE’LL SIGN FISCAL CLIFF BILL TONIGHT, SAYS HE ‘WILL NOT HAVE ANOTHER DEBATE’ ON THE DEBT CEILING

By admin on January 2, 2013

Barack Obama

Appearing shortly after the House voted to pass a fiscal cliff deal Tuesday night, President Barack Obama called the bill a “first step” toward deficit reduction, but warned that he will not go through the same battle with Republicans over the debt ceiling.

“Thanks to the votes of Democrats and Republicans in Congress I will sign a law that raises taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Americans,” Obama said. “Tonight’s agreement further reduces the deficit by raising $ 620 billion in revenue from the wealthiest households.”

“This law is one more step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy and broaden opportunity.”

But, he added, “the fact is, the deficit is still too high.”

“I believe there’s further unnecessary spending in government that we can eliminate,” he said. “There will be more deficit reduction as Congress decides what to do about the automatic spending cuts in two months.”

“As I’ve demonstrated throughout the past several weeks, I am very open to compromise,” he said. “But we cannot simply cut our way to prosperity.”

“While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills they have already racked up,” Obama said. “We can not not pay bills that we have already incurred.”

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