Obama continues meetings with GOP leaders

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama pressed on with his Republican charm offensive yesterday, holding a White House lunch with House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan in an effort to soften the ground for potential talks on a long-term deficit reduction deal.

On Capitol Hill, efforts to stave off a late March government shutdown shifted to the Senate after House Republicans swiftly passed legislation to keep federal agencies running, while also easing some effects of $85 billion in budget cuts. If the shutdown can be avoided, it could clear the way for lawmakers and Obama to at least discuss a broader budget agreement.

Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the budget committee's top Democrat, also attended yesterday's lunch with the president and Ryan. The midday gathering followed the president's Wednesday night dinner with a dozen Republican senators.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama found the dinner "very constructive and very pleasant." "We don't have to agree on everything, we don't have to solve all of our differences to move forward on finding solutions to the challenges that we face," Carney said.

House Speaker John Boehner, who has not been among the Republicans the president has reached out to in recent days, said Obama's recent overtures were a "hopeful sign" that progress could be made in breaking the impasse over how to reduce the federal deficit. Still, he said those efforts wouldn't get very far if Obama continues to insist on tax increases.

While no real breakthroughs were expected from Obama's gatherings with Republicans, the mere fact they were happening was significant, given the lack of direct engagement between Obama and rank-and-file Republicans over the past two years.

"It was, I thought, a very sincere discussion," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), one of the dinner attendees, said yesterday. "Everybody laid their cards on the table. I thought it was constructive."

"I do think it helped lay a foundation that maybe sometime between now and when the debt ceiling hits, which is really around the first of August . . . we'll get to a much broader and deeper deal as it relates to solving our fiscal problems," he said.