President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, each facing strife within his own ranks and dwindling time to avert a U.S. default, pressed for a broad agreement to boost the debt limit while cutting spending by trillions of dollars and overhauling the tax code.

Obama summoned top Democrats to the White House last night after Democrats balked at word of a potential deal between the president and Boehner that would reduce the long-term debt by about $3 trillion over 10 years through deep spending cuts without an immediate increase in taxes. Democratic lawmakers said they feared the president was moving toward an agreement that undermined their party's priorities.

“We are very volcanic at this moment,” Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, said as she left a session at the Capitol with White House budget director Jack Lew. “The clock is running, the Republicans are running from a real solution. I don't want the president to be an enabler of that.”