Obama turns up pressure on Republicans

President Barack Obama turned up the political pressure on Republicans yesterday, saying he would be willing to negotiate on budget issues only after they agree to re-open the federal government and raise the debt limit with no conditions.

An unbending Obama said he would not hold talks on ways to end the fiscal impasse under threat from “more extreme parts of the Republican Party”.

“If reasonable Republicans want to talk about these things again, I’m ready to head up to the Hill and try,” Obama told reporters.

“But I’m not gonna do it until the more extreme parts of the Republican Party stop forcing (House Speaker) John Boehner to issue threats about our economy. We can’t make extortion routine as part of our democracy.”

Obama’s comments followed an earlier phone call to Boehner, who had adopted a slightly more conciliatory tone after a meeting with House Republicans.

“There’s nothing on the table, there’s nothing off the table,” Boehner said, making no mention of his recent demands to delay parts of Obama’s healthcare law in return for approving funds to end the government shutdown.

House Republicans emerged from their meeting saying they would insist on deficit-reduction talks with Obama as a condition for raising the federal debt limit, but some signalled they might pass short-term legislation to avert a default in exchange for talks.

“If we have a negotiation and a framework set up, we can probably reach a way to raise the debt ceiling while the negotiation is in progress. But nobody is going to raise it before there is a negotiation,” Republican Tom Cole said.

The bitter fiscal stalemate has shut down the federal government for eight days and threatens to prevent the raising of the country’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit before an Oct 17 deadline identified by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

The possibility the government could default on its debt sparked fears of potential global economic havoc, with foreign creditors and the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist warning of the potential consequences.

“I think what could be said is if there was a problem lifting the debt ceiling, it could well be that what is now a recovery would turn into a recession or even worse,” IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said.

Lunar probe

Politics may be keeping most of NASA’s workers home, but that didn’t stop the US space agency’s new moon probe from achieving lunar orbit, officials have said.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, blasted off on Sep 6 aboard a small rocket that placed the spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit around Earth.

After three trips around the planet, LADEE on Sunday was in position to fire its braking rocket, let itself be captured by the moon’s gravity and settle into lunar orbit.