(Continued from page 34)

engage their party on the nation's biggest problems are applauding his newfound outreach -- part of a concerted effort by the president to mend ties with Congress in hopes of reaching a grand compromise on fiscal issues.
• On the other hand, neither side is backing down from entrenched positions that have prevented deals in the past.
• Exhibit A: the House GOP's new budget proposal, crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who ran against Obama as the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee but broke bread with him last week as the president initiated his congressional "charm offensive."
• Ryan and House Republicans, who were to meet with Obama at the Capitol on Wednesday, put forward their 2014 budget fully mindful that it would be dead on arrival at the White House and in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The plan, which the White House immediately panned, doubles down on longstanding Republican proposals to slash funding for programs Obama and Democrats sorely want to protect. It includes a repeal of Obama's health care law -- a major component of his legacy -- and Medicare changes that would shift more of the cost to future patients.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- For all the talk of a presidential "charm offensive" and possible thaw in partisanship, ample signs show that Congress is far from reaching a "grand bargain" to shrink the deficit.
• The Senate's top Republican, standing just outside the Capitol room where President Barack Obama was meeting with Democratic senators Tuesday, said he will push for trims to Medicare and Social Security without yielding another dollar in new tax revenues.
• Democrats have long insisted that higher taxes -- chiefly on the wealthy -- must accompany any reductions in those entitlement programs. There must be a "balanced approach" to reducing the deficit, they say.
• But Republicans say Obama used his only bit of tax leverage in December, in the "fiscal cliff" resolution. Now they are pushing Democrats to confront Medicare's and Social Security's long-term funding problems without the political sweetener that liberals have always demanded and that Obama called for in his re-election campaign.
• "The only way to straighten America out is to fix the entitlement issue," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday. "There is no revenue

(Continued on page 36)