Obama threatens veto of House GOP spending cuts

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans shrugged off President Barack Obama's threat to veto legislation to cut federal spending by trillions of dollars Monday while simultaneously negotiating with him over more modest steps to avert a potential government default.

The Republican bill demands deep spending reductions and congressional approval of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in exchange for raising the nation's debt limit. But Obama will veto it if it reaches his desk, the White House said, asserting the legislation would "lead to severe cuts in Medicare and Social Security" and impose unrealistic limits on education spending.

In response, GOP lawmakers said they would go ahead with plans to pass the bill today. "It's disappointing the White House would reject this common-sense plan to rein in the debt and deficits that are hurting job creation in America," said Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

By contrast, neither the administration nor congressional officials provided substantive details on an unannounced meeting that Obama held Sunday with the two top House Republican leaders, Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Obama said late Monday the two sides were "making progress."

Several Republicans said privately the decision to vote on veto-threatened legislation is paradoxically designed to clear the way for a compromise. They said conservatives would have a chance to push their deep spending cuts through the House and then see the measure quickly die either in the Democratic-controlled Senate or by veto.

Barring action by Congress to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit, the Treasury will be unable to pay all the government's bills that come due beginning Aug. 3, two weeks from Wednesday.

Administration officials, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others say the result could be a default that inflicts serious harm on the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the worst recession in decades.