Barack Obama, John Boehner | featured news

The nation’s capital was enveloped in a familiar kind of gridlock late Monday, as Republicans again demanded that President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats act first to put off $85 billion in automatic cuts slated to take effect on Friday.

House Speaker John Boehner and a top aide to President Obama are duking it out in competing columns over who is to blame for the sequester. "It is a product of the president's own failed leadership," wrote Boehner in The Wall Street Journal, nine days before the sequester -- $85 billion in automatic budget cuts -- kick in.

House Speaker John Boehner has invited President Obama to deliver his State of the Union message on Feb. 12. "Our nation continues to face immense challenges, and the American people expect us to work together in the new year to find meaningful solutions," wrote House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a letter inviting Obama to address a joint session of Congress.

U.S. President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the top Republican in Washington, met at the White House on Monday to try to reach a budget deal that would head off steep tax hikes and spending cuts that could push the economy into recession next year.

Obama and Boehner hinted compromise is possible, in a bid to defuse tensions before talks next week to avert a fiscal crisis.

Flush with re-election vigor, President Barack Obama on Friday will provide his first public comments on the upcoming negotiations with Congress on how to deal with pending tax hikes and spending cuts that create the so-called fiscal cliff facing the economy at the end of the year.

House Speaker John Boehner emerged in the aftermath of Tuesday’s presidential election to strike a conciliatory note, offering to work with President Barack Obama on a grand bargain to avert the impact of the coming fiscal cliff.

President Obama and John Boehner have very different recollections of a tense phone call during the 2011 dispute over the debt ceiling, according to Bob Woodward's new book. They do agree that Obama called Boehner to say he would never sign an agreement that would force a reprise of the debt-ceiling debate before the 2012 election, according to the book The Price of Politics, to be released Tuesday.

Don't expect President Obama and Congress to agree on much between now and Election Day. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said this morning that Obama "checked out last Labor Day" and "all he's done is campaign full time for the last six months." Obama and aides say Republicans are blocking their initiatives on jobs and other items in an effort to undercut him politically.