Washington Post-President Obama Meets With The GOP

President Barack Obama speaks to the media after the 30 November 2010 meeting with the GOP: Jason Reed/Reuters

(Story reported by Perry Bacon and Shailagh Murray for the Washington Post)

President Obama and congressional Republican leaders praised each other for collegiality after a much-anticipated meeting Tuesday at the White House, but they made little headway on the issues that divide the two parties.

Their most tangible accomplishment was an agreement to work toward resolving an impasse over tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Jacob Lew, head of the Office of Management and Budget, will work with a group of four lawmakers - two from each party - "to break through this logjam," Obama said. 

The meeting, originally scheduled for an hour in the Roosevelt Room, turned into a two-hour session, including a 35-minute gathering in a private dining room that was not attended by Obama advisers. Instead, Obama and the eight lawmakers held what the White House described as a "more intimate session.

Obama told lawmakers he needed to do more to make sure the two parties could work together, press secretary Robert Gibbs said later. White House officials said the GOP did not offer a similar pledge.

"The president acknowledged he needed to do better," Gibbs said.

(Click here to read the full story on the Washington Post website.)