Boehner indicates little support for president’s agenda

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday it’s unlikely the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate will prevent a wave of automatic spending cuts from beginning to strike the economy in two weeks. Yet he sounded hopeful about avoiding a partial shutdown of the government when a temporary spending bill expires next month.

Cloistered in his Capitol office overlooking the National Mall, Boehner said in an interview with The Associated Press that he was skeptical of many of President Barack Obama’s plans, laid out the night before in the annual State of the Union address.

Boehner voiced doubts about Obama’s proposal for taxpayer-funded help for preschool education for all 4-year-olds, and would not commit to passing a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants, though doing so would be “somewhat helpful” to members of his party as they seek to regain support among Hispanics.

Boehner also refused to swing behind any of Obama’s gun-control proposals and said he opposed the president’s plan to raise the minimum age to $9 an hour.

The Ohio Republican said he gets along well with Obama but admits their relationship hasn’t generated much in the way of results, pointing to two failed rounds of budget talks in 2011 and at the end of last year. Boehner is frustrated that spending cuts Obama signaled he would agree to in 2011 have been taken off the table since the election.

“It hasn’t been real productive the last two years, and frankly every time I’ve gotten into one of these high-profile negotiations, it’s my rear end that got burnt,” Boehner said. “It’s just probably not the best way for our government to operate.”

Obama stumped in support of his minimum-wage plan, his calls for a manufacturing revival and his other State of the Union proposals in a trip to Asheville, N.C., where he said: “If you work full time, you shouldn’t be in poverty.” He takes his case to Georgia on Thursday and his hometown of Chicago on Friday, all part of his effort to build popular support for an agenda facing stiff resistance back in Washington.