You knew this was coming.

Washington (AFP) – Republican leaders are to offer President Barack Obama a temporary deal to raise the US government’s debt ceiling in exchange for budget negotiations, lawmakers said Thursday.

“Listen, it’s time for leadership,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters after meeting his party colleagues from the House of Representatives.

“What we have discussed as a conference is a temporary extension of the debt ceiling. In exchange for a real commitment by this president and the Senate majority leader to sit down and talk about the pressing problems that are facing all the American people.

“That includes a broad array of issues,” he said, flanked by senior members of his party.

Party leaders were due to meet Obama later Thursday, ten days into a budget crisis that has seen a large part of the federal government shut down and left the United States facing the possibility of a debt default for the first time in its history.

A White House official would not say whether Obama would accept a short term increase in the debt ceiling, which the government is due to hit on October 17, and restated the position that Congress should pass a budget and re-open the government.