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WASHINGTON, July 21 (UPI) -- The White House said Thursday "there is no progress to report" on debt limit negotiations, while House Speaker John Boehner said a compromise is inevitable. "The fact is that there is no progress to report," White House spokesman Jay Carney said at his regular news briefing Thursday, "but we continue to work on getting the most significant deficit reduction package possible."
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Republican and Democratic aides said overnight that cutting the U.S. budget by $4 trillion over a decade is back on the table in White House-congressional talks. Carney said Thursday those meetings were "constructive and useful," even though they didn't move the ball forward.
Boehner told reporters Thursday while some GOP House members are against any compromise, "I do not believe that would be anywhere close to the majority.
"At the end of the day, we have a responsibility to act," Boehner said. "If the United States of America's debt rating gets downgraded, every interest rate in America will go up. It is important for us to act … if we're serious about getting our economy going again and growing jobs."
The possibility of a reborn "grand bargain" came after President Barack Obama said Wednesday he would change his view and accept a short-term hike in the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling if congressional leaders came up with a "concretely significant" deficit-reduction plan before Aug. 2, but needed a bit more time to pass the legislation, the White House said.
Obama earlier said he would veto any short-term increase in the nation's borrowing limit.
Carney said Wednesday Obama agreed to accept an extension of "a few days" if this gave lawmakers breathing room to get a long-term deficit-reduction and debt ceiling bill passed by both houses of Congress.
"We believe a short-term extension absent an agreement to a larger deal is unacceptable," Carney said.
Carney did not say what type of agreement would be needed to get Obama's blessing on a temporary extension, but he said the so-called Gang of Six proposal put forward by six members of the Senate -- three Republicans and three Democrats -- was "concrete."
That proposal, presented Tuesday, seeks to cut the deficit $3.7 trillion over 10 years in part by closing tax loopholes and overhauling Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Obama met Wednesday evening with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., at the White House, officials said.
The meeting came at the end of a day in which some congressional leaders focused on the Gang of Six strategy, while others discussed a fallback Plan B proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to give Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling $2.5 trillion in three installments, unless two-thirds of Congress voted to block it.
"Right now there are multiple trains heading toward the station," Carney said before the evening White House meeting. "And some of them may continue up to the last moment, because we need to be sure that that fail-safe option is there -- even as we pursue, aggressively, the possibility of doing something bigger."
After the White House meeting, Cantor told The Washington Post he remained committed to "not raising taxes" but did not rule out a larger plan.
"Again, there are a lot of things that may or may not be possible, but we're just trying to drive toward a result right now," he said.
Obama met earlier Wednesday with Democratic congressional leaders and with Boehner and Cantor in separate meetings. The White House and the congressional leaders declined to discuss the sessions.
Treasury Department officials say the debt ceiling must be raised before Aug. 2, or the government will run out of cash to pay its bills, including 70 million Social Security checks set to be sent out Aug. 3.
Many lawmakers say they will not vote to increase the debt cap without a significant deficit-reduction plan.
