US deficit deals to reach before deadline: Cantor

WASHINGTON: A top Republican leader said on Sunday he was confident that a congressional "super committee" tasked with slash US deficits would reach a deal before a Nov. 23 deadline.

Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to rein in deficits but are divided on how to do it a year before President Barack Obama runs for re-election.

Republicans favour sharp spending cuts but oppose Obama's push to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

"Yes, I do think that the joint select committee (super committee) will be successful," House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in an interview on the "Fox News Sunday" program.

Six Democrats and six Republicans on the super committee have been meeting for about a month behind closed doors to find at least $1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years.

They have said very little publicly about their deliberations or whether any progress has been made on the politically explosive issues of tax hikes and spending cuts for government healthcare and retirement programs.

During bitter debt limit negotiations that led to an August agreement creating the super committee, Republicans firmly refused to consider Democratic demands that tax increases be part of any package that included spending cuts for Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs for the elderly and poor.

Cantor, however, told "Fox News Sunday" that he was opposed generally to raising taxes, which he said would hurt small businesses and slow the economic recovery.

Failure by the super committee to reach agreement by Nov. 23 would trigger $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, starting in 2013, evenly divided between military and domestic programs.

Copyright Reuters, 2011