After White House talks, a long road to partisan cooperation

In their first sit-down since the power-shifting elections last month, President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress agreed Tuesday on a way to negotiate the fate of expiring tax cuts — the issue likely to set the tone for the relationship between the president and his newly empowered opposition.

The White House meeting took place after earlier delays and with election-year calls for party solidarity still fresh. As a result, expectations were low for any significant breakthrough on the most pressing questions of taxes, budgets, an arms treaty with Russia and the continuation of benefits for the unemployed.

Even by that standard, however, the gathering only underscored the difficulty the White House and congressional Republicans and Democrats are bound to encounter in trying to reach crucial agreements before the end of the year.

Emerging from what both sides praised as a frank and civil meeting, Obama said he had instructed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and budget director Jacob Lew to lead talks with four lawmakers — two from each party — in the coming days.

Obama said the goal would be to “break through this logjam” in the debate over whether to extend all of the tax cuts from the George W. Bush era, as Republicans want, or just those targeted at the middle class, as Democrats advocate.

So far, the White House has appeared more motivated than Republicans when it comes to making such a breakthrough. While not yielding on his position on the tax cuts, Obama has clearly sought to court his rivals.

On Monday, the president announced a federal pay freeze, a concession to budget hawks that will probably rile labor allies on the left. In his remarks Tuesday, he acknowledged past slights in dealing with GOP House leaders and extended to them an invitation to Camp David.

He even interrupted the formal, businesslike meeting to invite the lawmakers into his private dining room. He wanted a more intimate conversation without all the note-takers present, aides said.

Throughout it all, Republicans maintained a stiff posture.

“We had a very nice meeting together. Of course, we’ve had a lot of very nice meetings,” Rep. John A. Boehner (R- Ohio), the House Republican leader and incoming speaker, told reporters.

As Boehner and GOP leaders met with Obama in the West Wing, other Republicans took to the House corridors to hold the line.

“No tax increases for nobody,” demanded Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R- Texas), soon to be the chairman of the House Republican Conference. “It is poor grammar, but it is great economics.”

The posture was one of a party confident in its public support — and with reinforcements on the way. Although still a minority in the House, Republicans will welcome a new class of GOP lawmakers in January that is nothing if not unified by its opposition to spending and taxes and its willingness to confront the White House.

The public is split on exactly how to handle the Bush tax cuts, but generally favors the Republican approach to taxes, deficits and job creation, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center last month.

Republicans seem less concerned than Democrats about the Dec. 31 deadline for extending the tax cuts. A failure to broker a deal would result in a roughly 3% increase in income taxes for most taxpayers, including the middle class, a result that Obama said Tuesday would be “disastrous for those families but also could be crippling for the economy.”

Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), however, described the dilemma in far less urgent terms in an op-ed published Tuesday in the Washington Post. They wrote that if the White House and Congress fail to act by year’s end, the GOP would “work to get the job done” in January.

The White House, however, seemed to be moving swiftly. The panel charged with negotiating on the tax cuts was expected to meet quickly, perhaps as soon as Wednesday.

Despite the new initiative, Democrats appeared intent on voting to extend tax cuts only for those households earning $250,000 or less. Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco) planned to hold a vote soon and pressed Republicans to agree to an extension of unemployment benefits, which expired Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was realistic about the possibility that the administration’s latest stab at bipartisanship may fall short.

“I would hope that this will allow the American people to say that we’re trying to work in good faith to come up with a bipartisan proposal,” Reid said.

McConnell depicted Reid as just the opposite — focused on side issues rather than the tax cut.

Congress should settle the tax cuts and government funding and leave other issues — including an arms reduction treaty with Russia — for next year, McConnell said.

Obama said after the meeting that he hoped it would herald a change in the vehemently partisan Washington debate. He noted that several of his “friends” who joined him in his dining room said they wanted to end the game in which “both sides come to the table, they read their talking points, then they head to the microphones, trying to win the news cycle instead of solving problems.”

It was lunchtime, but everyone in the room had previously scheduled news conferences to get to.

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

cparsons@latimes.com

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Michael A. Memoli in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.