VOA常速英语:Obama Takes Debt Argument to Public

Eleven days before a possible U.S. government default, President Barack Obama went to the American people Friday with his appeal for an agreement on raising the legal borrowing limit.  No deal is publicly apparent, despite intense negotiations.

President Obama held a public forum at the University of Maryland Friday, at which he said it would not be acceptable for the government to default on its obligations.

"The United States of America does not run out without paying the tab.  We pay our bills.  We meet our obligations.  We have never defaulted on our debt, and we are not going to do it now," Obama said.

The government has reached its legal debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion.  If lawmakers do not raise that limit, the U.S. could begin running short of money on August 2.

Opposition Republicans in Congress refuse to increase the debt ceiling unless the government budget deficit is reduced significantly.

The president has said any deficit plan must include both cuts in social programs, which members of his own Democratic Party have opposed, and higher taxes, which Republicans have said they will not accept.

Obama said Friday the deficit cannot be shrunk without increasing tax revenue.  He said the richest Americans must be asked to give up some of their tax breaks.

"This is not about punishing wealth," Obama added.  "This is about asking people who have benefited the most over the last decade to share in the sacrifice."

The president said his challenge is to devise legislation which can pass the sharply divided Congress.

Obama and the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, are reported to be working on a deal which could cut the deficit by about $3 trillion.  Both sides deny that an agreement has been reached, and Boehner repeated emphatically Friday that a deal is not in sight.

"I am going to say it one more time," said Boehner.  "There was no agreement, publicly, privately, never an agreement, and frankly, not close to an agreement.  And so I would just suggest that it is going to be a hot weekend here in Washington, DC."

The Democratic-controlled Senate Friday rejected a deficit-cutting bill the Republican-led House had passed.  The legislation would have raised the debt ceiling only if Congress sent a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution to the states for consideration.

Top Senate Democrat Harry Reid called the bill a waste of time.

"This is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever to be placed on the floor of the United States Senate," said Reid.  "It violates the spirit of our Constitution, and certainly what we are trying to accomplish here in Washington.  And we as a Senate refuse to waste even one more day on this piece of legislation."

Meanwhile, President Obama dismissed a suggestion that he use an existing constitutional amendment to justify raising the debt limit without congressional approval.  The president said his lawyers "are not persuaded that that is a winning argument."