WASHINGTON--White House Senior advisor David Plouffe said on CNN's "State of the Union," NBC's "Meet the Press" and other Sunday shows President Obama will unveil his approach to "long-term deficit reduction" this week. I'm told by the White House the speech will be Wednesday.

CONTEXT: The speech will come as Congress faces a vote on raising the debt ceiling--a matter many Republicans are deadset against. This comes as Obama and Congress finally finished up battles near midnight Friday on the fiscal 2011 budget---almost six months into the fiscal year--only to plunge right into more significant haggling over the fiscal 2012 budget.

Plouffe to Candy Crowley on SOTU: re deficit reduction: 'He'll speak to that this week. But he believes we need significant debt reduction in the coming years, and that's what he's going to speak to this week."

Plouffe to David Gregory on MTP: "The President will be laying out his approach to long-term deficit reduction later this week. And I think that we have to focus on that.

The debt ceiling is something that has to be raised every once in a while. It's something the Speaker of the House John Boehner has said if we didn't raise it would bring a financial disaster both in this country and around the world. Economist after economist has said it would raise interest rates. It could wreak havoc on the housing market, on the economy. It could be a catastrophic failure for the United States economy if we didn't raise it."