Boehner accuses Obama of threatening government shutdown over budget plan "When such delicate discussions are underway, the introduction by your administration of such an explosive new dynamic . . . needlessly injects a new element of uncertainty into our economy and further jeopardizes hope for a bipartisan agreement," Boehner wrote, remarks that he echoed in his weekly Thursday news conference. Obama's advisers have rejected the idea that his latest threat amounted to a possible shutdown, instead insisting that the veto threat was meant to set up their argument that the current spending plans advancing in the House would gut key domestic programs. "Obviously, he's not threatening a government shutdown," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters this week, adding, "It's a statement about how we should responsibly fund our government in ways that keep the commitments that Congress has made in the past to the American people." The White House budget office issued the blanket veto threat late Monday in response to two spending bills that cleared the House this week. One would fund veterans affairs and military construction, the other would fund the Department of Homeland Security. Both were drafted at spending levels approved in a blueprint drafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which calls for the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester to remain in place through the coming fiscal year. Both Democrats and Republicans are privately acknowledging that the overall sequester-level cuts are likely to remain in place for years to come, but the coming fights are going to be about how to slice up those increasingly scarce dollars for the agencies, with Republicans favoring the Pentagon and other national security priorities. The Ryan budget would shift the burden of those cuts away from veterans and national defense programs, and force domestic agencies to shoulder the entire burden. Democrats oppose that approach and have called for the much of the sequester to be canceled and replaced with higher taxes and other savings. But Republicans have refused to open formal negotiations to address that broader question, and the House instead has proceeded to draft 2014 spending bills as if its own budget framework were in force. After weeks of complaints from congressional Democrats about the lack of progress, the White House on Monday fired its first real shot in the debate, issuing formal statements about each of the pending bills. The final confrontation on both of these issues is months away. Federal agencies are funded under a stopgap resolution through the end of September, and the possible broad budget framework is being slowly negotiated with an eye toward this fall, when the Treasury will reach its legal limit to continue maneuvers that allow it to borrow money to continue government functions. Boehner, in replying to the White House, is hoping to lay the groundwork for blaming any potential government shutdown at Obama's feet. "Your administration's sudden demand to increase spending and taxes - yet again - or else shut down the government can only be described as reckless," Boehner wrote to Obama.