Washington:
Failure to raise the US debt ceiling would cause the United States to default on its bills and would be "dramatically worse" than the current shutdown, President Barack Obama warned on Tuesday.
"As soon as Congress votes to reopen the government, it's also got to vote to meet our country's commitments, pay our bills, raise the debt ceiling," Obama told a press conference.
"As reckless as a government shutdown is, the economic shutdown caused by America defaulting would be dramatically worse," he added.
Criticising the rival Republican Party, Obama said that lawmakers had two "very basic jobs" of passing a budget and "making sure that America's paying its bills."
Members of Congress "don't get to demand ransom in exchange for doing their jobs," he said.
"We can't make extortion routine as part of our democracy. Democracy doesn't function this way. And this is not just for me. It's also for my successors in office, whatever party they're from," he said.
The US government, which has been partially shut down for the past week, faces an October 17 deadline to raise its borrowing limit or go into default.
But House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, has warned that he will not allow Congress to raise the ceiling unless Obama offers concessions on his signature reform of expanded health care coverage.