US House speaker urges Obama to start fiscal negotiation

As the fiscal stalemate over U.S. federal government's budget and debt ceiling lingers, House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday urged President Barack Obama and other Democratic lawmakers to start a fiscal negotiation with Republicans to end the fiscal logjam. "There's never been a President in our history that did not negotiate over the debt limit," Boehner said at a Tuesday press conference, adding that "Americans expect us to work out our differences." With the ongoing government shutdown starting on Oct. 1, Washington faces another fiscal deadline as U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has told Congress that the federal government will reach its debt ceiling of 16.7 trillion U.S. dollars by Oct. 17, and failure to raise it by Congress would lead to a catastrophic default. However, Democrats and Republicans have not agreed on how big the borrowing authority increase should be and what conditions may be attached to it. Refusing to negotiate is an untenable position. By refusing to negotiate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Obama are " putting our country on a pretty dangerous path," said Boehner, the top Republican lawmaker. "The way to resolve this is to sit down and have a conversation to resolve our differences," Boehner told reporters. There are no boundaries in the future fiscal negotiation, stressed Boehner, adding that "there's nothing on the table. There 's nothing off the table. I'm trying to do everything I can to bring people together and to have a conversation."