WRAPUP 6-Obama, lawmakers meet for 1 1/2 hours on debt impasse
* Republican abandonment of bigger effort looms over talks
* White House says Obama still hopes for ambitious deal
* LaGarde warns of global fallout if deal not reached
(New throughout with more details, end of meeting)
By Caren Bohan and Laura MacInnis
WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama sought on Sunday to break an impasse with Republicans on deficit reduction and avert a potentially catastrophic debt default that could reverberate globally.
The gathering at the White House, which included leaders of both parties, lasted less than 90 minutes, a much shorter session than the four or five hours congressional aides had predicted late last week.
The meeting came a day after Republicans shied away from a broad $4 trillion deficit-reduction deal and urged a focus instead on a $2 trillion plan.
The U.S. Treasury has said it will exhaust its borrowing capacity by Aug. 2, meaning it will run out of money to pay all its debts. Republicans have balked at raising the congressional-set $14.3 trillion debt ceiling without steep spending cuts.
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Full coverage of U.S. budget and debt [ID:nUSBUDGET]
What's on the table in U.S. debt talks [ID:nN1E75T1ZR]
US jobs stall, setting back recovery hopes [ID:nN1E7670C0]
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Failure to seal a deal by Aug. 2 could put the United States at risk of another recession, Treasury officials and private economists have warned.
Obama made clear at the start of the talks that they were racing the clock. Asked whether a deficit-reduction deal could be agreed to within the next 10 days, he told reporters: "We need to."
Uncertainty about the outcome of the debt negotiations has contributed to a lack of confidence among U.S. businesses over taxation levels and growth prospects.
Investor worries about the debt ceiling were expected this week to put pressure on the U.S. dollar, which fell on Friday after a grim jobs report. In early Asian trading on Monday, the New Zealand dollar was near a 30-year high against the U.S. dollar and the Australian dollar dipped.
REVOLT OVER TAXES
House Speaker John Boehner, facing a revolt from fellow Republicans over the prospect of higher taxes in a large-scale $4 trillion budget deal, told Obama on Saturday he would only pursue a smaller $2 trillion package.
The move threatened to throw Sunday's meeting into disarray. It followed Democratic complaints to Obama -- whose 2012 re-election prospects are tightly linked to U.S. economic health -- that he should not agree to any reforms of popular entitlement programs that would lead to benefit cuts.
Calling it a "grave moment for the country," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told NBC's "Meet the Press" that Obama and the Democrats would try to get the "biggest deal possible."
In a separate appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," Geithner warned of the need to reach a deal soon.
"I do believe that this week, and certainly by the end of next week, we have to have agreement on the outlines of a package," he said.
Christine Lagarde, the new head of the International Monetary Fund, said a U.S. default would have global repercussions.
"If you draw out the entire scenario of a default, yes, of course, you have all of that, you know, interest hikes, stock markets taking a huge hit and real nasty consequences," the former French finance minister told ABC's "This Week."
(Additional reporting by Steven Holland, Tabassum Zakaria, Jim Wolf, Thomas Ferraro, Andy Sullivan and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Bill Trott)
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The solution is for the people to regain control of the money. As it stands now, the richest 1% (a little over three million people) possesses 90% of the money. All the R’s can say over and over is “no taxes”. Taxes need to be shoved down their throats. We need to tax ourselves, then use the money to finance temporary job creation by our government until the 99% of us have enough spending power to stimulate the economy. Here’s just one idea– we could use some work on our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. These employed workers would then spend their paychecks at the butcher, baker and candlestick maker, and bob’s your uncle, the economy starts perking along again.
Why have we allowed their lobbyists to run our nation into the ground? We need to tax the rich, and we need to tax them progressively. And close those loopholes, so income is taxed as income! For a taxpayer with an adjusted gross income over $250,000, increase their taxes perhaps only 5%. Income over a million? Tax at 35%. Income at a billion? Tax at 90%. Yes, 90%. Confiscatory, you say? Well, do some arithmetic– if you have a billion dollars, after a 90% tax you will have $100 million to try and get by on. Most of us not-richest 99% could probably squeak by on a hundred million if we tightened our belts.
I was under the impression that its people, not its lobbyists, ruled this nation. The 99% of us not-so-rich people (approximately 304 million of us) need to wrest control from the lobbyists and the people they lobby– our elected congresspersons. Let’s elect only those willing to serve OUR interests, not just the interests of the richest 1%.
The must be draconian cuts: bring home all our foreign based troops, retaining enough in active duty to absolutely secure both southern and northern borders. This means an end to our fruitless wars overseas.
Further cuts: all grants to non profit entities eliminated: NPR, PBS, NEA, PP – all of them.
Eliminate whole departments: Education, EPA and TSA plus others. TSA especially can have its duties passed on to the arilines.
Surviving agencies, with the exception of the VA which would see modestly increased funding, would take a 20% reduction in overhead costs this year, then 10% for the three following years.
Much more could be done. We don’t need this much government.
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