The US Senate's top two Republicans on Sunday stood firm against including tax increases in any deal to raise the debt limit and shrink budget deficits one day before a meeting with President Barack Obama, but said the showdown need not go down to the "11th hour."
Obama is to meet separately with Senate Democratic and Republican leaders on Monday to try to revive negotiations that collapsed on Thursday when Republicans walked out over Democrats' demands for tax increases.
Sending a message to Obama in appearances on Sunday news interview shows, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, his deputy in the leadership, presented a unified front demanding spending cuts and opposing tax hikes.
"We have a spending problem. We don't have a problem because we tax too little," McConnell said on the ABC program "This Week."
"We need to quit borrowing, quit spending, and get us our trajectory heading in the right direction. Throwing more tax revenue into the mix is simply not going to produce a desirable result, and it won't pass," McConnell added.
Obama said on Saturday he remained committed to working with Congress to solve the government's debt problem, but the focus could not be only on spending cuts, as Republicans demand.
The $14.3 trillion US debt ceiling must be raised before August 2 or the Treasury Department will run out of money to pay the nation's bills. A default on debt payments could send markets plunging globally and raise the risk of another US recession.
"One of the reasons we are meeting tomorrow (Monday) is that I think both the Democrats and the Republicans would like to come together and finish this negotiation and finish it sometime soon. It need not necessarily go to the 11th hour," McConnell said.
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