WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden plan to meet with Senate Democratic leaders Wednesday, the latest step in debt negotiations with Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will make his second trip to the Oval Office this week. He will be joined by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chuck Schumer of New York and Patty Murray of Washington.
Obama's involvement represents a new stage in the discussions. Biden had been leading bipartisan negotiations that had identified up to $1.3 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. But the talks stalled because Republican negotiators objected to Democratic demands that any deficit reduction deal also include increases in tax revenue.
Obama also met with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday. No new meetings with Republicans are scheduled.
The president will hold a news conference at 11L39 a.m. Wednesday, his first formal question-and-answer session since high-stakes debt and budget negotiations began.
Obama was expected to open with comments about spurring the economy and job growth, and touch on the deficit talks that have occupied Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders over the past several weeks.
It comes amid persistent signals that the economic recovery has slowed. Obama has been stepping up his promotion of job creation initiatives amid evidence that the state of the economy has weakened his job approval standing with the public. Obama, no doubt, will also have to address the status of negotiations with Congress over long-term deficit reduction and an increase in the nation's borrowing limit.
The president is also likely to face foreign policy questions. For the past three months, the U.S. has participated in NATO strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya, raising questions in Congress about the effectiveness and even the legality of the mission.
Obama also recently announced a drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, prompting criticism by some lawmakers that he was not pulling enough forces out and by others that he was acting too precipitously.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
