If debt deal near, Obama would OK stopgap measure

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Breitbart:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Running out of time, President Barack Obama softened his stand and signaled Wednesday he would back a short-term deal to prevent a disastrous financial default on Aug. 2, but only if a larger and still elusive deficit-cutting agreement was essentially in place. He called lawmakers to the White House in a scramble to find enough votes from both Republicans and his own party.

The president, pushing for a big compromise that would cut the nation's budget deficit and extend the government's tapped-out borrowing power, had threatened to veto any stopgap expansion of the nation's debt limit. He even challenged House Majority Leader Eric Cantor not to call his bluff about it in one confrontational moment last week.

Obama's now-calibrated position, offered by spokesman Jay Carney, reflected the reality: that leaders are nearly out of time to head off unprecedented trouble. Carney said if a divided Congress and the White House can agree on a significant deal, Obama would accept a "very short-term extension" of the debt limit to let bigger legislation work its way through Congress.

Even a few days matters, given the stakes. The government will exhaust its ability to borrow money and pay its bills come Aug. 2, an outcome that could sink the country back into recession, halt Social Security checks and other payments, send interest rates higher and erode the creditworthiness of the richest nation on earth.

At the White House, Obama met privately with the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, and then separately with House Speaker John Boehner and Cantor. All signs pointed to a legislative battle that would play out until the last minute.
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A band-aid bluff?