Obama Vows to Veto Any Short-Term Fix to Fund Government

The president and Democrats want to increase spending beyond the agreed-upon caps of the 2011 budget sequester, while most Republicans want to lift only military spending while making further cuts on the domestic side.

In a broader news conference on Friday, the president spoke about several issues including education, Syria, gun control and Congress.

Sidestepping a confirmation fight in Congress, Obama tapped a senior bureaucrat to run the department while leaving the role of secretary vacant for the remainder of his presidency. “This is not the way the United States should be operating”.

“So the bottom line is, Congress has to do its job”.

Obama and congressional leaders are in the middle of budget negotiations for keeping the government funded after mid-December.

But Obama called that a “gimmick” that only sets up another potential crisis. The White House wants a more permanent agreement, particularly because the short-term funding deals keep in place a series of spending limits.

“If it gets messed with, it would have profound implications for the global economy and could put our economy in the kind of tailspin we saw in 2008″, he said. “It has to get done in the next five weeks”.

Obama said Russian President Vladimir Putin has not attracted worldwide support for his approach in Syria, which is a longstanding Russian ally.

But Obama and his fellow Democrats differ from Republicans on budget priorities.

That deadline, and the need to raise the government’s debt ceiling expected in early November, loom as Republicans struggle to find a successor for House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner.

A few conservative Republicans have demanded that any spending plan eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, the women’s reproductive health service.