President Obama confident a bipartisan solution to debt-limit crisis can be reached

President Barack Obama addresses the National Council of La Raza at their annual conference luncheon at the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC, July 25, 2011. NCLR's Annual Conference is the largest gathering in the Hispanic community..Photo by Olivier Douliery/ABACAUSA.com

President Obama addressed ongoing debt-limit talks at the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House early Friday, expressing confidence that congressional leaders will put their differences aside and reach a bipartisan solution.

“The time for putting party first is over. The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now,” he said. “And I’m confident that we can solve this problem.”

Obama took to the podium with a sense of urgency over the government’s efforts to avoid default, just hours after House Republican leaders delayed a vote on Speaker John Boehner’s two-step debt-limit bill for the second consecutive day.

Denouncing Boehner’s plan and declaring that it “has no chance of becoming law,” the president condemned the proposal for forcing politicians to revisit the issue before the 2012 elections.

“It’s a plan that would force us to relive the crisis in just a few short months,” he acknowledged. “Holding our economy captive to Washington politics once again. In other words, it does not solve the problem.”

With the American public growing increasingly hostile over the way congressional leaders from both ends of the political spectrum, Obama stressed the importance of coming to a bipartisan compromise before the August 2 deadline.

“For all the intrigue and all the drama that’s taking place on Capitol Hill right now, I’m confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail,” he said. “But, as I said earlier, we are now running out of time. It’s important for everybody to step up and show the leadership that the American people expect.”

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