Days before Tuesday's August 2nd deadline to raise the nation's debt ceiling, President Obama took to this week's address with a very simple message: Washington needs to get its house in order.
The way to do this, according to the President, is to accept a bipartisan deal that, in President Obama's words, ". . . must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the American people -- not just one faction of one party." Keeping this week's events in mind, it seems reasonable to assume that President Obama was speaking towards the Tea Party faction of the Republican party.
On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) passed his version of a debt-ceiling compromise after cutting a deal to appease Tea Party Republicans by including a provision that would add a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Before this deal to gain Tea Party support, Speaker Boehner's plan faced opposition from within his own party as well as a promise from Senate Democrats that the bill would be dead on arrival if it ever passed the House.
Speaker Boehner's plan passed the House by a vote of 218 to 210, but opposition from Senate Democrats and the President remained. Indeed, Boehner's bill was dead on arrival in the Senate. On MSNBC's The Ed Show, Joy-Ann Reid of The Grio took a look at the Democratic response:
In his weekly address, President Obama argued that both parties are not too far apart on budget cuts, tax and entitlement reform. But the President made it very clear, failure to act on the debt ceiling will have serious consequences for the American people and America's financial reputation:
"The parties are not that far apart here. We're in rough agreement on how much spending we need to cut to reduce our deficit. And we agree on a process to tackle tax reform and entitlement reform. There are plenty of ways out of this mess. But there is very little time.
We need to reach a compromise by Tuesday so that our country will have the ability to pay its bills on time -- bills like Social Security checks, veterans' benefits, and contracts we've signed with thousands of American businesses. If we don't, for the first time ever, we could lose our country's AAA credit rating. Not because we didn't have the capacity to pay our bills -- we do -- but because we didn't have a AAA political system to match it. And make no mistake -- for those who reflexively oppose tax increases on anybody, a lower credit rating could be a tax increase on everybody -- we'd all pay higher interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and credit cards.
That would be inexcusable, and entirely self-inflicted by Washington."
President Obama closed his address by reading a letter he received from a woman named Kelly Smith. The letter asked Washington to get its house in order. President Obama agreed:
"Here in Washington, we need to get our house in order. And I have to say, Democrats in Congress and some Senate Republicans have been listening and have shown themselves willing to make compromises to solve this crisis. Now all of us -- including Republicans in the House of Representatives -- need to demonstrate the same kind of responsibility that the American people show every day. The time for putting party first is over. The time for compromise on behalf of he American people is now."
The President's Weekly Address:
