Obama calls for Republicans to compromise, avoid crisis

demand that Republicans compromise in stalled talks to avoid a default.

A day shy of the one-week mark before the United States begins to run out of money to pay its bills, Obama in a nationally televised address called the debt talks stalemate that now has dragged on for weeks “a dangerous game” that the country “cannot afford to play”.

As the US president spoke from the East Room of the White House, the dollar plunged to a four-month low in Tokyo early amid growing jitters as the impasse between Republicans and Democrats over the US debt crisis deepened.

Obama cast the blame for the stalemate on Republicans’ refusal to raise the US$14,3 trillion debt ceiling unless there is agreement to make deep spending cuts without increases in taxes on the wealthy.
If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling by August 2, the resulting economic disaster could include higher interest rates for the US government as well as for American consumers. Failure to compromise, Obama said in his speech from the White House, “would risk sparking a deep economic crisis – one caused almost entirely by Washington”. He rejected a Republican proposal for a temporary increase in the debt limit, arguing it would leave the underlying problem unresolved and lead to a repeat of the current crisis in just six months’ time.

“That is no way to run the greatest country on Earth. It is a dangerous game we’ve never played before, and we can’t afford to play it now,” he said. With a potential US default as of yesterday just a week away, Obama appealed to Americans to “make your voice heard” to members of Congress.

Obama’s speech was only his seventh formal address to the nation, and the first since he unveiled a timeline for a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in June.
The top Republican leader in Congress, John Boehner, responded with a late-night speech of his own on Monday, blaming Obama for the crisis, and warning that while the United States cannot default on its debt obligations, Americans nevertheless would demand deep cuts in spending. – AFP.