Obama Pushes Senate Plans

President Barack Obama voiced support for debt plans crafted by Senate party leaders Friday, one day after the controversial Republican plan to raise the debt ceiling was stalled in the House.

“There are plenty of modifications we can make to either of these plans in order to get them passed through both the House and the Senate,” Obama said from the Oval Office.

The Reid plan couples an extension of the debt limit through 2012 with $2.2 trillion in cuts and no revenue increases. McConnell’s proposal would give the President the unilateral authority to raise the debt ceiling three times before 2012.

During his remarks, Obama specifically targeted House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) proposal, which would offer two six-month extensions of the debt limit in exchange for $916 billion in cuts and the establishment of a Congressional committee to find additional savings.

“It’s a plan that would force us to relive this crisis in just a few short months, holding our economy captive to Washington politics once again,” Obama said.

The House was scheduled to vote on the Boehner plan Thursday evening, but Republican leadership postponed after more Conservative members refused their support. Senate Democrats have indicated that it will not pass the upper chamber and the White House has threatened to veto the legislation if it lands on his desk.

The President’s remarks came on the same day as the Commerce Department announced a sluggish 1.3 percent increase in GDP growth. Obama pointed to the poor economic news as additional evidence for the importance of extending the debt ceiling before the August 2nd default deadline.