Politics. On Point.

UPDATE: As the two sides go back and forth to solve the issue of the so-called fiscal cliff, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement today that reveals President Obama is less willing to accept the latest offer from Congress. States Carney, "The Speaker’s “Plan B” approach doesn’t meet this test because it can’t pass the Senate and therefore will not protect middle class families, and does little to address our fiscal challenges with zero spending cuts." "The President has put a balanced, reasonable proposal on the table that achieves significant deficit reduction and reflects real compromise by meeting the Republicans halfway on revenue and more than halfway on spending from where each side started.  That is the essence of compromise."   President Obama continues to work with Republicans to reach a bipartisan solution that averts the fiscal cliff, protects the middle class, helps the economy, and puts the nation on a fiscally sust...

President Obama held a meeting in the Roosevelt Room and a conference call with a bipartisan group of mayors, county officials and community leaders to discuss his proposals in the fiscal cliff negotiations. The White House is reporting that the president spoke with Tampa, FL Mayor Bob Buckhorn;  St. Paul, MN Mayor Chris Coleman; St. Columbus, OH Mayor Michael Coleman; Bluffton, IN  Mayor Ted Ellis:  Dallas County, TX  Judge Clay Jenkins; Cincinnati, OH Mayor Mark Mallory;  Executive Russ Pry of Summit County, OH; Avondale, AZ Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers and Laredo, TX Mayor Raul Salinas. Earlier this week, Micheal Steel, speaking on behalf of Boehner and company, made these comments. "We sent the White House a counter-offer that would achieve tax and entitlement reform to solve our looming debt crisis and create more American jobs. As the Speaker said today, we're still waiting for the White House to identify what spen...

Vice President Biden made a trip to Arlington, VA's grand opening of Costco where he was put some mileage on his newly re-activated Costco card. Per a White House pool report : "The Bidens have been Costco members in the past. The Vice President and Dr. Biden’s Costco memberships were re-activated yesterday; they paid the $55 membership re-activation fee to receive their new cards.The Vice President received his own card which he is carrying today while shopping at Costco." Vice President Biden was greeted by Costco CEO Craig Jelinek and Co-founder Jim Sinegal. After perusing the store's various departments and indulging in the store's available sorted food samples, he was invited to stop by the tire department but declined the offer saying to the employees, "Hey man I don't need tires, I don't drive anymore." After delighting Costco shoppers with handshakes and photo ops the VP made his way to checkout where he was seen purch...

As President Obama gets set to meet with Congressional members today regarding the fiscal sanity of the country, we get some pretty good color commentary from White House pool reporters. Just as President Obama spent his anniversary debating with presidential candidate Mitt Romney, we find that House speaker John Boehner is spending his birthday duling it out with President Obama. The president's remarks come from pool reporter, Amy Gardner of The Washington Post. PRESIDENT OBAMA:  "I want to welcome the Congressional leadership here and thank them for their time. I think we're all aware that we have some urgent business to do. We've got to make sure that taxes don't go up on middle class families, that our economy remains strong." "That's an agenda that Democrats and Republicans and independents, people all across the country share. So our challenge is to make sure that we are able to cooperate together work together find some common groun...