WASHINGTON – Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham took a jab at Republicans who are turning their sights toward the debt ceiling and away from the fight to repeal Obamacare in the government funding bill, saying they needed to come back to the original issue.
The Treasury has said the U.S. will hit the debt ceiling on October 17.
“This is a fight about Obamacare,” Needham told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Wednesday. “And the attention of Republicans and conservatives needs to be back on Obamacare and not on other ways out of this situation.”
Needham was responding to a question about House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, which suggests negotiating “an agreement to make modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code” to quickly reopen the government and make sure that the country does not default on its debt.
Needham, throughout the breakfast, was adamant that while he didn’t want a government shutdown, the government should not reopen unless Democrats make concessions on the healthcare law.
“The only acceptable way out of this is some deal that funds the federal government without funding Obamacare,” he said.