{"id":112941,"date":"2011-07-13T11:30:59","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T06:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=112941"},"modified":"2011-07-13T11:30:59","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T06:30:59","slug":"us-pension-payments-imperiled-by-debt-crisis-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/07\/13\/us-pension-payments-imperiled-by-debt-crisis-obama.html","title":{"rendered":"US Pension Payments Imperiled by Debt Crisis: Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that payments to millions of retirees and others could be threatened if Congress fails to approve a debt ceiling increase by an Aug. 2 deadline, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/afp\/article\/ALeqM5iHOEFw2pu5A8icKPBTmHQogOwc1Q?docId=CNG.d9c4c1b49b35ea341257305c9ca1c1d6.371\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">AFP reports<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3 if we haven&#8217;t resolved this issue,&#8221; Obama said in an interview with CBS television. &#8220;Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not just a matter of Social Security checks,&#8221; he added. &#8220;These are veterans checks, these are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The comments come amid increasingly frantic talks to avert an early August US debt default, and increasing political rancor.<\/p>\n<p>White House spokesperson Jay Carney meanwhile reiterated the urgency of reaching a deal with lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The need for the United States to take action so that it fulfills its obligations and pays its debts, as it has in the entirety of its existence, is not a Democratic problem. It&#8217;s not a Republican problem. It&#8217;s an American problem and it&#8217;s something that we have to do together,&#8221; Carney told reporters at the White House.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president feels very strongly about this. I would also note that while Congress has to vote to raise the debt ceiling, the president doesn&#8217;t have a vote in this. It&#8217;s Congress that has to act,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that payments to millions of retirees and others could be threatened if&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[24280,29605,10677,12705,17297],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}