Debt Talks Not Yet Dead; Monday White House Meeting Planned

After the abrupt end to negotiations on increasing the nation's debt ceiling Thursday, the White House has announced their resurrection.

President Obama and Vice President Biden will welcome Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to the White House Monday to discuss "the status of the negotiations to find common ground on a balanced approach to deficit reduction," the White House announced early Friday afternoon.

Though the meeting will be bipartisan, it will be absent a major Republican player: House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). However, both the White House and the speaker's office say there is a reason for that.

Boehner Spokesman Michael Steel tells Fox, "We're not in session next week. And Boehner was at the White House a few days ago."

The Vice President has been the lead White House negotiator until now and has thus far been optimistic about the outcome. But after the two Republican representatives in the talks pulled out Thursday, both sides are continuing to lay out the same concerns they had when they went into the talks.

"The American people voted for a new majority in the House with clear orders to end the spending binge in Washington," Boehner said in a statement, adding, "The American people will not accept an increase in the debt limit that is accompanied by job-crushing tax hikes and fails to dramatically cut and reform government spending."

Vice President Biden drew his own line in the sand following the breakdown of talks.

"As the President and I have made clear from the beginning, the only way to make sure we begin to live within our means is by coming together behind a balanced approach that finds real savings across the budget - including domestic spending, defense spending, mandatory spending, and loopholes in the tax code," he said in a statement.

The White House has tried to portray the talks not as a breakdown but merely as the "next phase" in the process, although it is notable that the meetings with the leaders Monday are separate. Reid's will take place in the morning, while McConnell will meet with the president and vice president in the early evening.

Shortly after those meetings were announced, McConnell issued a statement railing on Democrats for what he sees as their immovability on taxes and spending. "That's not serious, and it is my hope that the President will take those off the table on Monday so that we can have a serious discussion about our country's economic future, "McConnell said.

After laying out the Democrats' own concerns Friday, White House Spokesman Jay Carney said the White House still believes an agreement can be reached. "We believe that we can move forward as long as no one in the talks takes a 'my way or the highway' approach."