Exactly when does Barack Obama intend to cut debt, not increase it? When Mr. Obama became president in January 2009, the total federal debt stood at $10.6 trillion. This week, it hit $16.7 trillion â an increase of 57 percent. In the same time frame under President George W. Bush, total federal debt rose 38 percent. Under President Clinton, it rose 32 percent. But the debt is still sure to go up, not down, for now as the Republicans offer an olive branch: House Republican leaders said Thursday they will offer a temporary increase in the federal debt ceiling in exchange for negotiations with President Obama on longer-term "pressing problems," but they stopped short of agreeing to end a government shutdown now in its 10th day. In a news briefing following a closed-door meeting of House Republicans to present a plan to raise the debt limit for six weeks, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said, "What we want to do is offer the president today the ability to move a temporary increase in the debt ceiling." He described the offer, to be presented to Obama in a White House meeting with House Republicans on Thursday afternoon, as a "good-faith effort on our part to move halfway to what he's demanded in order to have these conversations begin." Obama is "happy" that House Republicans agree a federal debt default is not an option, but he would prefer a longer extension of the debt limit, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. President Obama has rejected a proposal from politically besieged House Republican leaders to extend the nation's borrowing authority for six weeks because it would not also reopen the government. Yet both parties saw it as the first break in Republicans" brinkmanship and a step toward a fiscal truce.