Obama: Congress Must Raise Debt Ceiling, 'They Order Me to Spend'

by William Bigelow 

During his Monday press conference, Barack Obama bizarrely claimed he needs to raise the debt ceiling because Congress won't stop ordering him to spend money:

 

This is a matter of Congress authorizes spending. They order me to spend. They tell me: ‘You need to fund our Defense Department at such-and-such a level. You need to send Social Security checks. You need to make sure that you are paying to care for our veterans.’ They lay all this out for me, and--because they have the spending power--and so I am required by law to go ahead and pay these bills.
Separately, they also have to authorize a raising of the debt ceiling in order to make sure that those bills are paid. And so what Congress can’t do is tell me to spend X and then say, but we’re not going to give you the authority to go ahead and pay the bills.

Of course, Obama isn’t mentioning that it is largely his side that wants to spend, while the GOP wants to cut spending.

The issue here is whether or not America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation and so there’s a very simple solution to this. Congress authorizes us to pay our bills. Now if the House and the Senate want to give me the authority so that they don’t have to take these tough votes, if they want to put the responsibility on me to raise the debt ceiling, I’m happy to take it.
If they want to keep this responsibility, then they need to go ahead and get it done and you know, there are no magic tricks here. There are no loopholes. There are no, you know, easy outs. This is a matter of Congress authorizes spending.

The president's entire defense is predicated on the premise that spending absolutely must stay at its current levels, an issue he has been entirely unwilling to discuss with Republicans in Congress.
Notice that for the past two years, the House, run by the GOP, has passed budgets while the Democratic Senate hasn’t. Who’s the fiscally irresponsible party here?