Talks in Washington aimed at cutting the U.S. government's borrowing are on the verge of failure.
A special Congressional committee had been charged with finding $1.2-trillion-U.S. in savings by Wednesday.
But the talks between Democrats and Republicans are widely reported in the US media to have collapsed, with a formal joint-statement to that effect expected later on Monday.
Meanwhile, the U.S. national debt has just risen above $15 trillion U.S.
The committee was set up in August, a result of a last-minute deal between the two sides in Congress to raise the debt ceiling and avert a potential default on US debt payments.
Its members were instructed to find at least $1.2 trillion U.S. in savings or face automatic cuts in defence and domestic spending of an equivalent amount.
Reuters reported that the Republican and Democrat heads of the 12-member committee will issue a statement later on Monday saying they have been unable to reach a deal.
On Friday, the committee's Republican co-chairman Jeb Hensarling told reporters that members would meet over the weekend if necessary to "try and find sufficient common ground".
Disagreements have centred on whether tax increases should form part of the budget reduction measures, with Democrats in favour of such rises but Republicans opposed.
Republicans had also demanded cuts in entitlement programmes, such as social security, medicare and medicaid -- something that Democrats had shown willingness to permit, but only in return for tax rises on the rich that were not forthcoming from the other side.
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