Photograph by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner enters a press conference where he spoke about the fiscal cliff.

House Speaker John Boehner, after several conversations with President Barack Obama either in person or by telephone, has gone to the White House again today.

With a Dec. 31 deadline for averting a pileup of automatic tax increases and spending cuts bearing down on them, the two leaders have inched toward a potential compromise.

The president started these talks insisting on $1.6 trillion in tax revenue. The speaker opened with $800 billion in revenue, all of it from limiting tax exemptions.

The president has come down to $1.4 trillion. The speaker has gone up to $1 trillion.

The president has insisted on raising tax rates for top earners, households earning more than $250,000 a year. The speaker had refused, until late last week when, by accounts of people familiar with the talks, he offered to raise rates for  people making more than $1 million a year.

The speaker, in turn, has insisted upon concessions in entitlement spending.

If their potential meeting point rests in some figure around $1.2 trillion in taxes, and some cutoff for taxpayers protected from the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts on Dec. 31 at a household income of $500,000 — and if the two can find an accommodation on Medicare and other entitlements — they could have the makings of a deal.

The  meeting at the White House today lasted about 45 minutes, according to Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. He said there would be no “readout” of the details. The speaker did not respond to reporters’ questions afterward.

This is what both Boehner’s office and the White House have done following past talks, generally ending with an assurance that “the lines of communication” remain open.

This was the fifth personal talk.

They met, along with other congressional leaders, at the White House on Nov. 16.

They talked by phone on Dec. 5, and met at the White House on Dec. 9. They met again at the White House on Dec. 13, and by phone on Friday. Today, together again.

With eight dealing days left before Christmas, two weeks to the fiscal cliff.

Original post is Obama-Boehner Talks: 5.0 by Political Capital.

House Speaker John Boehner addresses the media outside the White House on Nov. 16, 2012, following a meeting with President Barack Obama. Photograph by Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Updated with White House comments at 12:50 pm EST:

Congressional leaders emerged from talks with President Barack Obama at the White House this morning voicing confidence in solving the budgetary and tax questions needed to avert a “fiscal cliff” before year’s end.

“We have the cornerstones of being able to work something out,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in the driveway outside the West Wing, joining House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in calling the talks productive. Reid said: “We both are going to have to give up something.”

For the Republicans, that means a concession on taxes. For the Democrats, that means cuts in entitlement spending.

“We feel very comfortable with each other, and this isn’t something we’re going to wait until the last day of December to get it done,” Reid said, offering some hope of not taking the talks to the brink of the Dec. 31 deadline when automatic spending cuts kick in and when Bush-era tax cuts expire.

“It was a very constructive meeting,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said. “Every person in America knows that we must reach agreement.”

They must have a goal of deficit reduction, she said, and “we understand that it has to be about cuts, it has to be about revenue, it has to be about growth… It was good. I feel confident that a solution may be in sight.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, highlighting the need for addressing entitlement spending to cope with the nation’s changing demographics, said: “We’re prepared to put revenue on the table provided we solve the real problem.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued this statement about the meeting that ran over an hour: “ The president and the leadership had a constructive meeting and agreed to do everything possible to find a solution that averts the so-called `fiscal cliff,’ and to work together to find a balanced approach to reduce our deficit that includes both revenues and cuts in spending and encourages our long-term economic and job growth.”

“Both sides agreed that while there may be differences in our preferred approaches,” Carney said, “we will continue a constructive process to find a solution and come to a conclusion as soon as possible. ”

Original post is Congressional Leaders Optimistic About Averting `Fiscal Cliff’ by Political Capital.