Debt-ceiling talks continue as sides pursue dueling plans
After expectations were raised of a possible deal earlier Sunday, weekend talks to resolve the nation’s debt-ceiling crisis appeared to reach a new stalemate, as the sides pursued separate plans.”We’ve hit an impasse,” said a top Democratic official close to the debt talks. “We’re trying but there’s just no bend on their part.”Asian stocks opened lower Monday, the first reaction in major markets after leaders failed to reach agreement on a deal to raise the U.S. debt limit.Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.6% to 10,087 evening dresses about 90 minutes after the start of trading.In Sydney, the Australian Stock Exchange’s All Ordinaries index was down 0.8%.President Barack Obama called House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to the White House Sunday evening.Geithner talks averting default crisis The mood in the White House is concern, from their vantage point, with the House’s inability to resolve the talks, the Democratic sources said.”Tonight, talks broke down over Republicans’ continued insistence on a short-term raise of the debt ceiling, which is something that President Obama, Leader Pelosi and I have been clear we would not support,” wedding dress Reid said in a Sunday night statement after the meeting.The Senate majority leader said his party is putting together a “$2.7 trillion deficit reduction package that meets Republicans’ two major criteria: it will include enough spending cuts to meet or exceed the amount of a debt ceiling raise through the end of 2012, and it will not include revenues.”
“We hope Speaker Boehner will abandon his ‘my way or the highway’ approach and join us in forging a bipartisan compromise along these lines,” said Reid.Sunday night, an Obama campaign official told CNN that the president has canceled his appearance at two fundraising events Monday night in Washington, because of the debt-ceiling situation.The Obama official said Vice President Joe Biden will attend the events instead.Earlier Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner told House Republicans in a conference call that an agreement, while not being “cut, cap and balance,” should reflect the principles of that package, according to sources familiar with the call. He spoke two days after breaking off talks with Obama on a $3 trillion-plus deficit reduction deal.”Cut, cap and balance,” which would have tied a debt-ceiling increase to sweeping reductions in federal spending, caps on future expenditures and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, was passed by the Republican-controlled House and rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate last week.”It will require some of you to make some sacrifices,” Boehner told his colleagues on the call, according to a source who participated in the call. “If we stand together as a team, our leverage is maximized, and they have to deal with us. If we’re divided, our leverage gets minimized.”
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