"They've put themselves into a bit of a box" with an unwavering commitment to debt reduction, he added.
Some in my own party may have trouble reconciling investments in our nuclear complex with a commitment to arms reduction.
The Republican contenders have so far not made growth a priority, and Mr Obama's commitment to deficit reduction in the medium term is far too feeble.
He will also challenge the Labour leadership to reveal which taxes they would raise to reconcile their public spending pledges with their declared commitment to deficit reduction.
So the point is we have to separate the two in the sense that we can make serious progress with great commitment on deficit reduction, but we must within a time certain raise the debt ceiling.
If the American Senate were to pass a climate bill that put a significant cost on carbon, and thus provided cuts of the same size as those expected under the cap-and-trade bill which passed the House of Representatives last year, America would be widely seen as having raised the stakes with a commitment to a reduction of just under 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
This is a remarkable success since developing countries did not take on any reduction targets under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
But since then China has restated its commitment to achieving a 40-45% reduction in carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 2020 compared with 2005.
The government has made a commitment to tackle climate change and has set a 3% annual emission reduction target.
These steps include the completion of a new strategic weapons treaty with Russia, a rebalancing of US nuclear policy towards a reduction in the potential use of nuclear weapons and their development, and a commitment to ask the US Senate to ratify the treaty banning nuclear tests.
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