The two sides achieved no breakthrough in a roughly 90-minute meeting and scheduled a third straight day of talks for July 12. This came after Obama, at a news conference, declared it is time for both Republicans and Democrats to "pull off the Band-aid, eat our peas" and make sacrifices.

"If not now, when?" Obama said.

Democrats familiar with the White House talks said that in the meeting, Democratic lawmakers indicated there would not be votes from their side for a deficit-reduction bill that only had spending cuts, as Republicans want.

They said Obama's view was that without tax increases, the package would at best be little more than US$1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, far short of the estimated US$2 trillion needed to extend the US$14.3 trillion debt ceiling through the end of 2012.

At his news conference, Obama said he has "bent over backwards" to work with the Republicans to try to come up with a formulation that does not require them to vote sometime in the next month to increase taxes.

Obama said he has been trying to negotiate a proposal in which taxes would not go up immediately, but in later years.

Obama used the latest in a series of White House news conferences to urge lawmakers on both sides to stop putting off the inevitable and agree to tax increases and cuts in popular entitlement programs, trying to persuade Americans he is the grownup in a bitter summer battle over spending and taxes.

Obama kept the pressure on for a deal by ruling out a short-term increase in the debt ceiling that some Republicans have proposed in order to buy more time to negotiate tougher issues.