Obama changes tactics in budget push, tries wooing Congress

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has launched an unprecedented outreach with Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill as he looks for a fiscal compromise with Congress that could include a deal to sharply reduce the federal deficit.

He’s made calls to senators of both parties, some of them more than once. He treated a dozen Republican senators to dinner at a Washington hotel Wednesday and lunched with House budget leaders Thursday at the White House.

Next week, he’ll meet separately with Republican and Democratic caucuses in the Senate and House of Representatives in an infrequent visit to the Capitol. It will be the first time he’s met with Senate Republicans on their turf in nearly three years.

The talks — mostly with rank-and-file members who the White House calls the “caucus of common sense” — have yet to produce any results. But lawmakers welcomed the conversa- tions they say should have happened years ago.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Obama’s new approach represented a 180-degree turn. “He is going to, after being in office now over four years, he is actually going to sit down and talk to members,” Boehner said. “I think it is a sign, a hopeful sign, and I’m hopeful that something will come out of it. But if the president continues to insist on tax hikes, I don’t think we’re going to get very far.”

Obama is speaking to lawmakers about his policy goals — including rewriting immigration laws and curbing gun violence — but the talks have focused primarily on the impasse over trimming the deficit and cutting spending as the president senses a window to negotiate a deal, according to several people familiar with the conversations.

Obama has never been one to lobby — or even socialize — much with lawmakers. Instead, he had tried to pressure Congress by rallying the public at campaign-style events across the nation.