Jay Carney did his best to instill continued urgency ahead of the August 2 debt ceiling deadline during the White House press briefing Wednesday:

It is only a matter of days before the August 2nd deadline. And while at midnight on August 2nd we don't all turn into pumpkins, we do as country lose our borrowing authority for the first time in our history. And that would be a very bad thing.

Carney added that if the deadline did pass, the government would have to make difficult decisions about which financial obligations to honor.

Choices then have to be made and it's a Sophie's choice, right? Who do you save? Who do you pay? That's an impossible situation that this country has never faced and should never face if Congress does what it was elected to do and does its job.

Carney also reiterated the president is not for a deal that only raises the debt ceiling for a matter of months, contending that it will be more difficult to reach a deal during an election year than now.

Do you believe that it will be any easier in an election year? We all know as veterans of Washington and understand how cycles work, it gets a lot harder to do hard things in an election year, right? And that's not a question of who it helps or hurts politically. You could argue because the public is overwhelmingly in support of the president's position that we should do this in a balanced way that this fight is good politically. But it's bad for the country and it's bad for the economy.