President Obama summoned congressional leaders to a Friday summit at the White House in a last-ditch effort to protect taxpayers, unemployed workers and the fragile U.S. recovery from severe austerity measures set to hit in just four days.
The White House said Obama and Vice President Biden would host the four senior lawmakers — Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — at the Oval Office meeting Friday at 3 p.m. EST.
Ahead of the White House session, lawmakers sent mixed signals about the prospects of a deal that would at least blunt the impact of the year-end “fiscal cliff,” the large tax-rate increases and spending cuts set to take effect automatically on Jan. 1.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday morning on NBC that he was “getting a little more optimistic today” and that “the odds are better than people think.”
“Sometimes it’s darkest before the dawn,” he said. He pointed to what he called “two good signs for optimism” — the active engagement of McConnell in talks with the White House for the first time and Boehner’s decision Thursday to call House members back on Sunday.
But Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) voiced skepticism, telling CBS that the afternoon meeting at the White House “feels too much to me like optics to make it look like we’re doing something.” He added: “This is a total dereliction of duty at every level. I’ve been very surprised that the president has not laid out a very specific plan to deal with this, but candidly Congress could have done the same, and I think the American people should be disgusted.”
Reflecting that sense of gloom, U.S. stocks fell for a fifth straight day at Friday’s open, the longest losing streak since September. The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were all down in early trading.
For his part, McConnell signaled interest Thursday in cutting a deal.
“The truth is, we’re coming up against a hard deadline here .
The White House said Obama and Vice President Biden would host the four senior lawmakers — Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — at the Oval Office meeting Friday at 3 p.m. EST.
Ahead of the White House session, lawmakers sent mixed signals about the prospects of a deal that would at least blunt the impact of the year-end “fiscal cliff,” the large tax-rate increases and spending cuts set to take effect automatically on Jan. 1.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday morning on NBC that he was “getting a little more optimistic today” and that “the odds are better than people think.”
“Sometimes it’s darkest before the dawn,” he said. He pointed to what he called “two good signs for optimism” — the active engagement of McConnell in talks with the White House for the first time and Boehner’s decision Thursday to call House members back on Sunday.
But Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) voiced skepticism, telling CBS that the afternoon meeting at the White House “feels too much to me like optics to make it look like we’re doing something.” He added: “This is a total dereliction of duty at every level. I’ve been very surprised that the president has not laid out a very specific plan to deal with this, but candidly Congress could have done the same, and I think the American people should be disgusted.”
Reflecting that sense of gloom, U.S. stocks fell for a fifth straight day at Friday’s open, the longest losing streak since September. The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were all down in early trading.
For his part, McConnell signaled interest Thursday in cutting a deal.
“The truth is, we’re coming up against a hard deadline here .