Obama Will Not Negotiate on Debt Ceiling

On the eve of another fiscal showdown with congressional Republicans, President Obama is outright refusing to negotiate over an increase to the nation’s debt limit, saying doing so would alter “the constitutional structure of this government entirely,” ABC News reports.

Said Obama: “If we continue to set a precedent in which a president … is in a situation in which each time the United States is called upon to pay its bills, the other party can simply sit there and say, ‘Well, we’re not going to put — pay the bills unless you give us … what we want,’ that changes the constitutional structure of this government entirely.”