White House budget director Jack Lew says he believes negotiators quibbling on the debt ceiling will probably only be able to complete a smaller deal, but he continued Sunday to advocate $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 or 12 years, Politico reports.
“We’ve said for some time now — as have most — that we need to do on the order of $4 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10, 12 years. We would like to get that done now,” Lew said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Lew noted creditors and the financial markets could accept something smaller, if negotiators could not secure a better deal.
Lew also said he thought there was enough time to get the deal done before the Aug. 2 deadline.
"There's still time to get something big done. The president has made it clear he wants to do something substantial," he said.
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