US President Barack Obama said Friday that Republican proposals for a budget deal without tax increases was not a serious plan. "That doesn't seem like a serious plan to me," Obama told a White House press conference, as he warned US lawmakers that the nation was running out of time to reach a deal on raising the debt ceiling and reining in the deficit.
He was speaking as the Republicans floated a long-shot plan which would tie raising the US debt ceiling to passage of a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution. The proposal envisions some $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, caps overall government spending as a percentage of GDP, and calls for a balanced budget amendment. But it would still not include any tax increases as Obama and his Democrats have called for to raise revenues.
Instead, the measure would include a statement that House Republicans will only agree to vote on raising the $14.3 trillion US debt limit if the entire Congress approves a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution. But Obama regretted that Republicans were allowing themselves to be blinded by their ideological beliefs.
"You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts," Obama said. "So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically into various positions because they boxed themselves in with previous statements."
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