Obama looks to resolve deadlock over "fiscal cliff"
12 Nov 2012
Emboldened by his decisive re-election last week, president Obama is looking to renew budget talks with Republicans this week as he takes over to steer the nation's policis and fulfill his promise to resolve the deadlock in Washington, the New York Times, reported associates as saying.
As he gears up for the meet Congressional leaders at the White House this Friday, Obama would not simply hunker down there for weeks of closed-door negotiations as he did in mid-2011, when partisan brinkmanship over raising the nation's debt limit damaged the economy along with his political standing.
He would be expected to travel well beyond Washington DC at times to rally public support for an accord aimed at deficit-cutting that mixed tax increases on the wealthy with spending cuts.
On Wednesday, Obama would meet with corporate executives at the White House as he used the fiscal problems of the nation to start rebuilding relations with business leaders.
Though many of them supported Mitt Romney, some had also formed coalitions to seek a budget compromise similar to what the president had been pushing for. He hopes to win them over to persuade Republicans in Congress to accept higher taxes on the assurance that he would deliver Democrats' votes for future reductions in fast-growing entitlement programmes like Medicare and Medicaid.
Dan Pfeiffer, the president's communications director said, every president learned lessons from their successes and failures, and Obama is no different. He added, there was no question that lessons were learned in the summer of 2011 that would impact his approach to the presidency for the next four years.
