President Obama is holding a town hall at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland to discuss the his plans for raising the debt ceiling and reducing the deficit. Live feed and coverage below, and join the discussion in the comments.
8:05 AM PT: President Obama is starting out with some comments before the town hall begins.
8:10 AM PT: President Obama's initial remarks are focused on the economy. He is focused on wanting more tax cuts and investments in infrastructure. It's sort of ironic that he'd focus on these things in the context of a town hall about reducing deficit, which he says will drive the long-term health of the economy.
8:15 AM PT: The problem with not raising the debt ceiling is that it's basically the same thing as not paying our bills, Obama says. "We have never defaulted on our debt, we're not going to do it now." But, he says, we should also restrain spending and start "paying down" the debt. "I'm willing to cut a historic amount of spending...[taking domestic spending] to the lowest level since Dwight Eisenhower."
8:18 AM PT: Brags about cutting programs that he thinks are valuable, but says we don't have enough money to pay for them. However, he says, we can't just reduce the deficit through spending cuts. We also need to raise revenue. "If we're going to reduce our deficit, then the wealthiest Americans the biggest corporations should do their part as well."
8:20 AM PT: "This isn't some wild-eyed socialist position. This is a position taken by people of both parties, and no party....It's a position taken by every President who has signed major deficit reduction legislation in the past...so we can pass a balanced plan like this."