By Sara Wyant

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WASHINGTON, July 7 – President Barack Obama praised Thursday’s bipartisan meeting with top congressional leaders as “very constructive” and said staff, as well as leaders, will be working over the weekend with plans to convene again Sunday. 

 

At that point, he expects “the parties will at least know where each other’s bottom lines are” and will be able to “start engaging in the hard bargaining that’s necessary to get a deal done.”

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The deal could save as much as $4 trillion over the next decade by making major spending cuts and overhauling the tax code.

The president emphasized that “nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.  And the parties are still far apart on a wide range of issues.”

“But, again, I thought that all the leaders here came in a spirit of compromise, in a spirit of wanting to solve problems on behalf of the American people.  Everybody acknowledged that the issue of our debt and our deficit is something that needs to be tackled now.  Everybody acknowledged that in order to do that, Democrats and Republicans are going to be required in each chamber.
 
Everybody acknowledged that we have to get this done before the hard deadline of August 2nd to make sure that America does not default for the first time on its obligations.  And everybody acknowledged that there’s going to be pain involved politically on all sides, but our biggest obligation is to make sure that we’re doing the right thing by the American people, creating an environment in which we can grow the economy and make sure that more and more people are being put back to work.

The president is scheduled to meet with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, on Friday morning.

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