WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama today challenged Congress to compromise and “do something big” to reduce long-term deficits, insisting he was willing to make his own tough choices including trimming benefits for wealthy Medicare recipients. Facing a critical August 2 deadline to raise the nation’s debt limit, Obama said the public was on his side but “we’re running out of time.”
Obama urged Republican lawmakers to make tough calls, too. He attempted to turn their opposition to any tax increases back against them, warning that a government default caused by failure to raise the debt ceiling would increase interest rates, “effectively a tax increase for everybody.”
Speaking in his second news conference of the week, Obamatried to cast himself as the voice of reason in the debate, saying several times that polls show even Republican voters support his approach to deficit reduction through spending cuts and additional tax revenue. “This is not a matter of the American people knowing what the right thing to do is,” he said. “It’s a matter of Congress doing the right thing and reflecting the will of the American people.”
The news conference came as the debate was shifting back to the halls of Congress after five days of private White House meetings failed to yield an agreement on the debt ceiling and deficit reduction. House Republicans were preparing to vote on spending cuts next week, and in the Senate the Democratic and Republican leaders were working on a fallback plan in the event August 2 came too close without any deal. (AP)