Attempt at Debt-Limit Deal to Avert Default

Treasury must decide whether to unveil its post-August 2 plans before Asian markets open around 5 p.m. EDT/2100 GMT. The plans would detail how the government will pay its bills if Congress does not raise the debt limit on time.


* The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, and Democratic Senator Charles Schumer talk about the debt ceiling negotiations on CNN's State of the Union program at 9 a.m. EDT/1300 GMT.


* National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling; the main Republican vote counter in the House, Kevin McCarthy; the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin; Assistant Senate Republican Minority Leader Jon Kyl talk about the debt negotiations on Fox News Sunday at 9 a.m. EDT/1300 GMT.


* IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde discusses the debt ceiling on CNN's GPS program at 10 a.m EDT/1400 GMT.


* White House senior adviser David Plouffe speaks on ABC's This Week television program at 10 a.m. EDT/1400 GMT.


* Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid delayed a procedural vote on the Democrats' debt limit proposal until 1 p.m. EDT/1700 GMT on Sunday to give top Democrats, Republicans and the White House more time to work out a bipartisan plan.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said at a joint news conference with House Speaker John Boehner earlier that he was confident a deal could be reached "in the very near future and resolve this crisis in the best interests of the American people."
Reid, after a meeting at the White House with Obama and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, initially disagreed with that optimistic assessment.
Obama needs Congress to approve an increase in the government's borrowing authority, known as the debt ceiling. Past increases have been routine, but Republicans, citing the giant U.S. deficit, have demanded huge spending cuts as a condition for approving the increase.
After weeks of intense partisanship, there was renewed talk of compromise that contrasted sharply with earlier developments as both the House and Senate convened for unusual Saturday sessions.
McConnell and Boehner held their news conference shortly after the House of Representatives rejected a Senate Democratic bill drafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid to raise the government's debt limit by $2.4 trillion and cut spending by $2.2 trillion.
The House vote was 246-173, mostly along party lines and after debate filled with harsh, partisan remarks. The vote was unusual in that Republicans lined up to kill Reid's legislation even though it hadn't even cleared the Senate. It was orchestrated as political payback because late Friday Reid had engineered the demise of a House-passed bill hours after it passed.
Shortly after the House vote, Obama stepped back into the debt-ceiling talks, calling Democratic leaders Reid and Pelosi to the White House for a meeting.
Before the House vote, Republicans said the Reid spending-cuts plan was filled with gimmicks and would make unacceptable reductions in defense spending.
Pelosi said Boehner "chose to go to the dark side" when he changed his own legislation to satisfy tea party-backed Republican lawmakers and other critics, prompting catcalls from the Republican side of the aisle.
Not even Democrats seemed to like Reid's measure very much, although many emerged from a closed-door meeting of the rank and file saying they would vote for it.
With their votes, many Democrats signaled their readiness for compromise by voting to cut spending without raising taxes. Many Republicans insist taxes must not be raised to cut into federal deficits, even for the wealthiest Americans and for big oil companies.
There was no doubt about the outcome of Sunday's planned procedural vote in the Senate, either, unless compromise intervened. A total of 43 Republicans sent Reid a letter saying they would block the bill from advancing, enough to prevent it from coming to a final vote under Senate rules.