House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Rich Edson about his concerns surrounding the economy. Boehner said that the United States economy is “barely” growing. He also discussed the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations, saying tax reform “is certainly in the mix.”
John Boehner Interview Excerpts
Excerpts from the interview are below.
On the U.S. economy and spending problems:
“When you look at our problem. We have two problems. We have a spending problem and secondly we’ve got this slow economic growth. It’s just – it’s pathetic. The President is going to go out there on his jobs tour and talk about how the economy is growing – barely. And so if we are serious about solving our spending problem, we need to look at our revenue side. And the revenue side means getting our economy going again, helping people get better wages and better opportunities for better jobs.”
On whether tax reform is part of negotiations surrounding the debt ceiling:
“It is certainly in the mix.”
On whether entitlements have to be a part of the debt ceiling agreement:
“It’s got to be part, but I don’t know how else you can balance the budget if you don’t deal with the entitlement problem. And these programs are important to millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, and they are not going to exist if we don’t deal with them.”
