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“People are so tired of this,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday in an interview with Los Angeles TV station KMEX.

Feeding concerns were a warning Tuesday from the Fitch credit rating agency that due to the budget impasse it was reviewing its AAA rating on U.S. government debt for possible downgrade. Stock markets gave negative reviews as well, with the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index both dropping Tuesday by nearly 1 percent.

John Chambers, chairman of Standard & Poor’s Sovereign Debt Committee, told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday that a U.S. government default on its debts would be “much worse than Lehman Brothers,” the investment firm whose 2008 collapse led to the global financial crisis.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC he doesn’t think the federal government will fail to pay its bills, but “if it does happen, it’s a pure act of idiocy.”

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, a tea party favourite, said he was not worried about the prospect of a U.S. default.

“We are going to service our debt,” he told CNN. “But I am concerned about all the rhetoric around this ….I’m concerned that it will scare the markets.”

Aides to Reid and McConnell said the two men had resumed talks, including a Tuesday night conversation, and were hopeful about striking an agreement that could pass both houses.