Post date: Oct 11, 2013 10:44:8 PM
White House says Obama appreciated the "constructive nature" of talks with Republicans but has concerns about proposal to end budget stalemate.
WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 11, 2013) (NBC) - President Barack Obama and congressional Republican leaders inched toward a resolution to their fiscal impasse on Friday (October 11), but struggled to nail down the length and terms of a short-term deal to increase the U.S. debt limit and reopen the federal government.
Obama met Senate Republicans at the White House and spoke by phone to House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner as negotiations intensified to find a way to get federal workers back on the job and extend the government's borrowing authority past the Oct. 17 limit.
"The president believes that in his meetings yesterday with House Republican leaders and today with Senate Republicans as well as with House and Senate Democrats there have been constructive talks and when it comes to the House Republicans in particular there's an indication anyway of a recognition that we need to remove default as a weapon in budget negotiations," saidWhite House Spokesman Jay Carney.
It was hard to gauge the progress of talks, as all sides refused to divulge specific details of what is being discussed.
But both sides spoke with new optimism about the possibility of avoiding a fiscal crisis, and lawmakers were expected to work through the weekend with a goal of finishing a deal by early next week.
Obama wants Republicans to raise the debt ceiling for longer than the six weeks they first proposed, and they want a commitment to broader deficit-reduction talks from the White House.
"The president appreciates the constructive nature of the conversation and of the proposal that House Republicans put forward. He has some concerns with it," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters after the discussion between Boehner and Obama.
House Republicans will meet at the Capitol on Saturday morning (October 12) to discuss their options after sending the White House a proposal that included the short-term increase in the debt limit that would clear the way for re-opening the government.
The Republican proposal called for cuts in entitlement programs like the Medicare health plan for seniors to replace two years of the automatic spending cuts known as "sequestration" agreed to last year by Congress, senior aides said.
But Carney said the short-term increase proposed by Republicans would not provide enough certainty for the economy, putting the country back on the verge of default during the end-of-year holiday season.
"A debt ceiling increase at only six weeks tied to budget negotiations would put us right back where we are today in just six weeks," Carney said.