House Speaker John Boehner, fresh off a tightly fought political battle to cut $38.5 billion from the federal budget for the rest of the fiscal year, said he understands President Barack Obama better and says there is a wide ideological gap between them about the role of the federal government.

Boehner however, did say that he and the President had developed a process that may allow debate to go forward. Congressional Republicans, including Boehner, have said since reaching a deal on Friday that averted a shutdown of the federal government that they expect big concessions from the White House and Senate Democrats to raise the debt ceiling beyond its $14.2 trillion level. Congress is also set to debate the 2012 federal budget, that will shape the nation's fiscal future for years to come.

Clearly after spending the last five or six weeks in pretty close contact with the President I think we've understood more about each other. I think we've developed a process that may allow the debate to go forward but understand that ideologically there are giant differences between the President and myself when it comes to how we view the role of the federal government, he said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.

Boehner, who says he ran a small business in Ohio before becoming a Congressional representative, said he came to Washington to seek a smaller, less costly and accountable federal government.

I used to run a small business before I went to Washington. I went to Washington because I thought the government was too big, spent too much, and wasn't being held accountable. So I'm for a smaller, less costly, and accountable government, he said.

The President has a completely different view of the federal government than I do. Having said that, for the good of the country it's our obligation to sit down and try to find a way to work together to advance the interest of our country.

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