Boehner Promises Entitlement Review
By NAFTALI BENDAVID And JANET HOOK
WASHINGTON—House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he's determined to offer a budget this spring that curbs Social Security and Medicare, despite the political risks, and that Republicans will try to persuade voters that sacrifices are needed.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Boehner said House Republicans would offer a budget for the next fiscal year that sets goals for bringing the programs' costs under control. But he acknowledged that Americans aren't yet ready to embrace far-reaching changes to Social Security and Medicare because they aren't aware of the magnitude of the financial problems.
"People in Washington assume that Americans understand how big the problem is, but most Americans don't have a clue," Mr. Boehner said, speaking in his Capitol office. "I think it's incumbent on us, if we are serious about dealing with the big challenges, that we go out and help Americans understand how big the problem is that faces us."
He added, "Once they understand how big the problem is, I think people will be more receptive to what the possible solutions may be."
Mr. Boehner also spoke forcefully in favor of raising the government's debt limit, a move strongly opposed by many conservative House Republicans. He reiterated that the action would have to be coupled with significant spending cuts.
Brooks Kraft for The Wall Street Journal
House Speaker John Boehner said in an interview the GOP will set goals to control benefit programs' costs.
"I think raising the debt limit is the responsible thing to do for our country, the responsible thing for our economy," Mr. Boehner said. "If we were to fail to increase the debt limit, we would send our economy into a tailspin."
Even while Republicans and Democrats wrangle over cuts to the discretionary spending that is determined by Congress every year, the question of how to tackle the government's promised Social Security and Medicare payments has loomed as a tougher challenge.
Entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid make up more than 60% of the budget. Annual outlays are expected to grow an average of 5.4% for Social Security and 6.8% for Medicare through the end of the decade.
Medicare's trustees estimate its main program will have sufficient funds to fully cover expenditures through 2029. The comparable date for Social Security is 2037.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week showed less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the government's financial woes. But a majority supported reducing benefits for wealthier retirees and raising the Social Security retirement age.
Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he told President Barack Obama that he would take the political plunge alongside him if the president announced his own willingness to tackle changes to those programs.
"I offered to the president we could lock arms and walk out and begin the conversation about the size of the problem," Mr. Boehner said, adding that Mr. Obama responded "positively."
But he also took aim at Mr. Obama for not proposing a plan to overhaul the programs. "I think the president shrank from his responsibility to lead," Mr. Boehner said. "He knows the numbers as well as we do."
The White House declined to respond, but Rep. Rob Andrews (D., N.J.) said tackling big problems would be tougher if the two sides criticized each other. "It's impossible if the process begins with the parties attacking each other, and I think Speaker Boehner ought to reconsider that tone and that message," he said.
Mr. Boehner made it clear the Republicans are not themselves offering a detailed plan anytime soon. Rather, the budget is likely to contain cost containment goals, but no specific ideas on how to achieve them.
During the interview, Mr. Boehner sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, the kind that were banished from the Capitol as environmentally unfriendly by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He spoke to the Journal shortly before going into a meeting with Vice President Joseph Biden and top congressional leaders about spending for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year. He refused to say where he thought those talks would lead.
"Am I optimistic we're going to cut spending and keep the government open? Yes," he said.
At the meeting, the White House offered to make an additional $6.5 billion in spending cuts to the budget for the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30. That was a step in the direction of Republican budget-cutters, but a fraction of the $57 billion difference between the parties.
Some have questioned whether the two sides can reach a deal for the rest of the fiscal year by a March 18 deadline, the date that legislation currently funding the government expires. But Mr. Boehner said, "We can do this in two weeks. I'm a glass-half-full guy."
He added that his relationship with Mr. Obama, with whom he talks every couple of weeks, is good. "It's open, it's honest, it's fair," he said.
Mr. Boehner declined to specify how he'd persuade GOP freshmen to support raising the debt ceiling. Many of them ran hard-hitting ads last fall blasting Democratic incumbents for voting to do so in the past.
Mr. Boehner spoke extensively about his relationship with the restless group of 87 House GOP freshmen. He recalled that during last year's campaign, many of them told him they noticed that Republican House members remained unified. During a meeting with the freshmen Thursday, he said, he recalled that observation.
"I reminded them of that story at noon today, because it was very obvious to them as they were candidates that this team stuck together," Mr. Boehner said.
But the GOP freshmen have shown considerable independence from Mr. Boehner and other Republican leaders—rejecting, for example, the leadership's initial 2011 spending plan. Democrats and other critics have suggested that Mr. Boehner isn't fully in charge of his own troops.
The speaker played down the freshmen's rebelliousness, saying he remembers what it was like to be a newcomer. "I was one of those wild-eyed, bomb-throwing freshmen," he said. "When they act like themselves, I'm very familiar with it."
Mr. Boehner added that he spends a good deal of time explaining to the freshmen what he's doing and getting their input, including Thursday's half-hour session. "Some think this is smart, we're doing good," he said. "Others think we should be doing more."
Mr. Boehner's office features such mementos as an oversized gavel and two golf-related books on a coffee table. On his wall, a New Yorker magazine drawing shows a wary Mr. Obama extending a handshake to a smiling Mr. Boehner, who in return offers a "fist bump.''
Mr. Boehner said he loved the men's expressions, and that the two men would probably be looking at each other that way all year.
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