Leadership in action.

(Briefing Room) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday there is no backup plan if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, but expressed optimism that talks were moving towards a deal.

“Our plan has been — and it’s the only plan available — is for Congress to act,” he said Monday on CNBC. “Their plan and our plan is for Congress to raise the debt limit.”

Geithner, who said he spent both days of the past weekend, “all day,” at the White House, said that “despite what you hear . . . people are moving closer to together” in debt-ceiling negotiations.

He said that leadership of both parties has taken default “definitively off the table.”

Geithner praised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) recent fallback proposal to raise the debt limit as a means to avoid default by “making sure the politics can’t stand in the way of very sensible fiscal reforms.”