U.S. President Barack Obama had a "very constructive" chat with close allies and bitter rivals, trying to head off a crisis over government spending that could cripple the economy.
Top lawmakers from both parties met at the White House Thursday to discuss the impasse over the U.S. budget.
"People were frank," Obama said, just moments after adjourning the 1½-hour meeting with the eight lawmakers who make up the bipartisan leadership of Congress.
Returning to the Capitol after the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner said: "We had a conversation. It was productive."
Obama acknowledged that the ultimate agreement will not satisfy partisans on both sides, but he said the deal would require both Republican and Democratic votes to pass Congress.
"Everyone acknowledged that pain will be involved politically on all sides," he said.
Republicans are insisting on major cuts to out-of-control deficits as the price for approving must-do legislation to increase the government's debt ceiling — the maximum it is allowed to go into debt to fund its daily operation.
The government is on track to break its current limit on Aug. 2. Unless Obama wins Congressional approval to raise the ceiling, the U.S. government would technically be in default as of that day.
A default would throw financial markets into turmoil, raise U.S. interest rates and devastate the economic recovery.
The negotiations were the first official sit-down since Republican House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor last month left talks that had been led by Vice-President Joe Biden, citing an insistence by Democrats on raising taxes.
The Obama administration wants to close tax loopholes to raise government revenues, which would then get the ballooning U.S. deficit under control. But the president's opponents say the government takes in enough money as it is, and instead want to see spending cuts to get the government back into the black.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett used fatalistic imagery to describe the situation Thursday, saying Congress is playing with fire by considering not raising the debt ceiling.
The CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway said Thursday on CNBC that there is no way to tell what might happen if the debt limit is not increased, but it's a dangerous idea.
Buffett compared the debate over raising the debt limit to a game of "Russian roulette" with one bullet in a revolver.
He said five times out of six refusing to raise the debt limit might not be dangerous, but the sixth time could have catastrophic consequences.
On Thursday, Cantor said that any deal to avert a government default must include "reforms to the system" to show that Washington can manage the country's finances.
In the Senate, however, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was against the idea. "To sort of cherry pick items in the context of this current negotiation at the White House strikes me as pretty challenging," he said.
Democratic officials allied with Obama said the president believes it would be easier to win bipartisan support in Congress for a deal that embraces larger deficit cuts closer to the $4 trillion US over 12 years that Obama proposed in April.
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