Boehner to Senate: Get off your a**
(CNN) - House Speaker John Boehner had some choice words Tuesday for his colleagues in the Senate over the forced spending cuts set to begin Friday.
Boehner, known for his at-times colorful language, said the House won't move a budget bill until the Senate "gets off their ass and begins to do something."
[twitter-follow screen_name='politicalticker']
He made his comments to reporters after speaking to the House GOP conference on Capitol Hill. Ahead of President Barack Obama's trip to Newport News, Virginia Tuesday afternoon, Boehner criticized the president for holding campaign-style events about the spending cuts, rather than acting to prevent them.
At issue is a disagreement over how to stave off the automatic, across-the-board cuts, known in Washington as the sequester. Democrats and Obama want to replace it with a mix of more specific cuts and an increase in taxes through the closing of certain loopholes.
Republicans, on the other hand, say taxes are out of the question.
"He's gotten his tax hikes," Boehner said, referring to the-end-of-the-year fiscal cliff bill that raised tax rates on top earners. "It's time to focus on the real problem here in Washington and that is spending."
Building onto the criticism, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Obama is hardly willing to meet Republicans in the middle.
"The president says we can't have any progress on this sequester unless we get the second tax hike in eight weeks. That's not compromise," Cantor said.
Later Tuesday, Senate Majority Harry Reid responded to Boehner's remark.
"I was raised in a little town that had 13 brothels in it," the Nevada Democrat said. "So I am used to some pretty salty language as you know."
Reid then read out Boehner's quote.
"I think he should understand who is sitting on their posterior," Reid added. "We are doing our best here to pass something. The speaker is doing nothing to try to pass anything over there."
Earlier in the day, Reid said Senate Democrats have a "balanced proposal" to replace the sequester with "smart spending reductions" and "measures that close corporate tax loopholes and wasteful subsidies and revenue from the very wealthiest among us."
Despite their proposal, however, Reid definitively stated the cuts will still take place due to GOP opposition.
"My Republican colleagues are standing in the way of a solution," he continued. "They only want cuts and more cuts. They are willing to sacrifice three quarters of a million American jobs rather than ask multi-millionaires to pay a penny more."
- CNN's Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
I cant wait until the midterm elections and that "do nothing" Congress moves on. We all live in this nation. What would posses you to sacrifice millions of American jobs just to protect the 2-4% of the wealthiest Americans? It's not right. It doesn't make sense. This sequester was the result of the congress doing nothing after the healthcare bill was pass. All they did was tell Obama no....Pretty much like they are now. Obama has given in and has even overreached at times. Its time for the GOP to get it together. They aren't even on one accord. You have the blind leading the blind at a time where everyone see's the consequences of the sequester but the GOP. They are so selfish that they would run America off a cliff just to get the cuts that they want. They need to GROW UP.
Repeal the 17th Amendment. Return Senators to their proper place as long-term planners above Washington politics. Representatives serve the people, Senators should be serving the States.
What is the big deal here, we give $60 billion to sandy releif, we can handle $ 85 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget, this is a joke. Obama the worst president in US history, PERIOD!!!
Fairness is the key, we all breathes the same air, we all walk the same earth, we all bleed blood, an we all die some day but we're all not treated the same. The rich stay rich an getting richer the poor stay poor an getting poorer, so where is the fairness???????????? My guess is we all don't love our fellow Americans alike as long as I get mine an you don't. The haves got it an the have not do not. People the peoblem started with Eve eating THAT APPLE.
Seriously, "Obamaquestor"! These Republicans keep playing childish high school politics while the country slowly declines into irreverence. What the Republicans are asking for has been tried in Europe in response to their recession, and euro problems. How has that been working? Obama's only problem in the early years was that he actually believed the Republicans had anything to offer the country. The Republicans are truly the "me first" generation and let everyone else wish they were like them. Obama should just ignore them completely, and push harder for what is good for the country first.
The house should pass a resolution to double the cuts listed in the present sequestration every month until a budget is passed & signed by His Highness (the president).
It's precisely the self-ascribed "patrios" and "fighters of freedom" that fuel the dysfunction in D.C. politics with their absolute disregard for Democracy and compromise. Moderates on the left have to reach to the far left because there is no longer a moderate right. It's all filled with angry children on a permament temper-tantrum...holding their breath until the country turns blue alongside them. No patriots, no freedom...just fools.
Keep it classy GOP, you are doing great at the polls and elections. I can't wait til the dems control house again in 2014. Then we can finally get our economy growing and obstruction will be a blip in our legislative history.
The Republicans are doing the only things that hey excel at ; making bumper sticker slogans, lying, and making more bumper sticker slogans.
Wouldn't it be AMAZING if the House Did something?
President Nixon had to resign or be impeached for eavesdropping. Wake up people.
Liberals must think that 60 million votes equal a mandate. Sorry to inform you that their are 220 some odd eligible voters in this country half of which new there was no one worth voting for. Dream on libs.
Boehner needs to grow up...it is disgusting to hear language like that from a supposed leader. He is the absolute worst Speaker we'ver ever had and hasn't accomplished anything. He is so afraid of Cantor and his Tea Party idiots that he's willing to let us suffer and the country to go back into recession just to make the President look bad. This is not what the majority voted for and we deserve so much more!