The White House says Mr Obama will not back off his efforts to reach a comprehensive debt deal US President Barack Obama is to meet Congressional leaders for talks on the government's debt aimed at staving off a looming default.
House Speaker John Boehner said he was abandoning plans for a comprehensive $4tn (£2.4tn) debt reduction deal that involved tax increases for the wealthy.
Instead, he said Republicans would focus on a smaller $2tn package.
The White House and Congress have until 2 August to raise the debt limit beyond $14.3tn or face running out of money.
If this happens, the government would be unable to pay civil servants, government contractors, pensioners and holders of government debt.
Economists and the White House have warned that such a default could push the US back into recession and trigger global economic chaos.
When the Congressionally-set debt limit has been reached in the past, Congress has voted to raise it. This year however, newly empowered Republicans want to see more aggressive debt reduction measures.
Mr Boehner and Mr Obama had last week worked on a comprehensive package of spending cuts and new tax revenue that would reduce the debt by $4tn over 10 years.
US federal government debt
- US government currently runs a $1.5tn budget deficit, requiring it to issue debt in the form of treasury bills, bonds and other securities
- Public debt was $14.3tn on 31 May, up from $10.6tn when Mr Obama took office in January 2009
- Most is held by the public, with the rest held in US government accounts
- Congress has voted to raise the US debt limit 10 times since 2001
Sources: US Treasury, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office
But in a statement released late on Saturday, Mr Boehner said he was pulling back from that because it involved tax increases.
"Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes," he said.
"I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the [Vice-President Joe] Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase."
A group of Republican and Democratic members of Congress led by Mr Biden had identified about $2tn in cuts in talks over May and June but those ended in an impasse.
Leaders from both parties are under pressure from rank and file members.
Democrats want to shield welfare programmes such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from spending cuts while Republicans reject tax increases.
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