WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday he won’t sign another temporary government funding bill after the current one expires Dec. 11, insisting that congressional Republicans and Democrats work out a long-term budget deal with the White House.

Obama said such a deal should lift a freeze on the budgets of both the Pentagon and domestic agencies. Speaking at a White House news conference, he said he “won’t sign another shortsighted spending bill” and asserted that the U.S. can’t cut its way to prosperity.

“Congress has to do its job. It can’t flirt with another shutdown,” Obama said.

On the so-called debt limit, which needs to be raised above the current $18.1 trillion cap by early November, Obama said he won’t repeat a 2011 negotiation over companion spending cuts that brought the nation to the brink of a first-ever default on its obligations.

“We’re not going back there,” he said, adding: “Historically, we do not mess with it. If it gets messed with, it would have profound implications for the global economy and could put our financial system in the kind of tailspin that we saw back in 2007 and 2008. … It has to get done in the next five weeks.”

Neither position was new or surprising, but the president’s statements came after the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. He decided to leave Congress after a revolt among forces who wanted him to use a temporary spending bill to take away Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. The same conservatives generally opposed lifting tight caps on spending set by the 2011 budget deal.


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