Corporate leaders pressing for a solution to the so-calledfiscal cliff will make their case at the White House and theCapitol a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lamented thelack of progress toward a deal.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfeinis among the executives scheduled to meet with President BarackObama today. The president is trying to enlist business support forhis campaign to extend tax cuts for middle-income Americans whileletting rates rise for top earners.

House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, plans to meetseparately today with Blankfein and other CEOs. Congress and thepresident are negotiating on ways to avoid the cliff, consisting of$607 billion in tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to beginin January.

The meetings with Obama and Boehner, the two chief negotiators,come a day after Reid said Democrats and Republicans have madelittle headway.

“There's been little progress with the Republicans, which is adisappointment to me,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reportersyesterday in Washington.

Following a Nov. 16 White House meeting between congressionalleaders and Obama, Republicans backed away from earlier openness toconsidering new tax revenue as part of a year-end deal to avert thecliff, Reid said.

“They talked some happy talk about doing revenues, but we onlyhave a couple weeks to get something done,” Reid said. “So we haveto get away from the happy talk and start talking about specificthings.”

U.S. stocks extended losses as Reid spoke. The Standard &Poor's 500 Index fell 0.5 percent to 1,398.94 yesterday in NewYork. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 89.24 points, or0.7 percent, to 12,878.13.

Other chief executive officers scheduled to meet with Obamainclude Frank Blake of Home Depot Inc., Ken Frazier of Merck &Co., Muhtar Kent of Coca-Cola Co., Douglas Oberhelman ofCaterpillar Inc. and Marissa Mayer of Yahoo! Inc.

Chief executives invited to meet with Boehner includeOberhelman, Thomas Wilson of Allstate Corp., David Cote ofHoneywell International Inc. and Mark Bertolini of Aetna Inc.

Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a CaliforniaDemocrat, also are meeting today with some of the businessleaders.

Face to Face

While both parties meet with various stakeholders, Obama andcongressional leaders have yet to schedule another face-to-facesession. A Democratic congressional aide said Nov. 26 that Obama isdelaying inviting the congressional leadership back to the WhiteHouse this week, as he had planned, because staff-level efforts hadmade little progress. The aide wasn't authorized to discuss thetalks publicly.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters yesterdaythat it was “wrong” to say that negotiations between the WhiteHouse and congressional leaders had broken down. He said Obamaspoke with Boehner and Reid by telephone last weekend.

“Our team is continuing discussions with their congressionalcounterparts on this matter and it is entirely appropriate, I wouldsay, both for the president and for leaders in Congress, to havethis discussion not just among themselves, but with the Americanpeople,” Carney said.

Obama met with small-business owners at the White Houseyesterday and plans to travel to a toy factory in Pennsylvania Nov.30 to build public support for his approach to averting the fiscalcliff at year's end.

“The target of the president's rallies should be thecongressional Democrats who want to raise tax rates on smallbusinesses rather than cut spending,” Boehner spokesman MichaelSteel said in an e-mail.

“Republicans understand that we must avert the fiscal cliff andhave laid out a framework to do so that is consistent with the'balanced' approach the president says he wants,” Steel said.

Boehner has said he would oppose increases in marginal taxrates, while suggesting he could support limits on deductions orother ways of increasing taxes on high earners. He has said hewants to take in any additional revenue through economic growth andan overhaul of the tax code.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican,yesterday accused Democrats of politicizing the talks.

'Turning Off'

“My advice to the president would be it seems like our friendson the other side are having some difficulty, kind of, turning offthe campaign,” McConnell told reporters.

As their price for considering more taxes, Republicans aredemanding structural changes to entitlement programs and anoverhaul of the tax code in 2013. They say they are waiting forObama and congressional Democrats to make an offer on spendingcuts.

Deficit-reduction talks can include savings from Medicare, thefederal health-care program for the elderly, without raising theeligibility age or turning it into a voucher program, RichardDurbin of Illinois, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, saidyesterday in a speech at the Center for American Progress inWashington.

Reid and Durbin also said yesterday that an agreement toincrease the debt ceiling should be included in any fiscal cliffagreement.

Reid said it would be “foolish” not to insist on a “packagedeal.”

The U.S. Treasury Department said Oct. 31 it expects to reachthe debt limit near the end of this year and can take“extraordinary measures” to meet its payment obligations “untilearly in 2013.”

A 2011 showdown between Obama and congressional Republicansalmost forced the U.S. to default on its debt.

“We're not going to find ourselves with some big partycelebrating in February and turn around in March and have somedoomsday scenario with the debt ceiling,” Durbin said.

In an e-mailed update on fiscal-cliff negotiations distributedyesterday, Brian Gardner, senior vice president of Washingtonresearch at investment bank Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc.,predicted that “the next three weeks could be a bumpy ride.”

“We expect many headlines that will raise and then dashinvestors' hopes that the fiscal cliff will be averted,” Gardnerwrote.

Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said in an interview hewas “concerned” about the lack of progress. “There's a point wherepanic will set in, but not yet, apparently,” he said.

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