To address urgent economic issues before the new Congress takes office, American President Barack Obama has invited the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress to work together on key issues.
After a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr. Obama said he called on the two leading Republicans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Representative John Boehner, to meet with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House on November 18. John Boehner will become the next speaker of the House when the new Congress takes office in January after he won the mid-term election.
The President said that the American people don't want the government to be locked in partisan debates and lose upon precious time. The meeting will focus on key economic issues and ways to resolve them before the new Congress takes office. He also has called upon the new Democratic and Republican Governors to hear their ideas and key concerns from the state level.
The next presidential election is due in the year 2012. The Republicans won enough seats in the mid-term elections to regain control of the House of Representatives, and took some seats from Democrats in the Senate too. The President also acknowledged The Democrats took a heavy defeat in the polls, saying the losses reflect the frustration of the American public with the troubled state of the economy.
The Democrats and its allies have held on to at least 52 seats in the 100-membered Senate which is enough to maintain a thin majority. Two Senate seats are however still undecided - one in the western state of Washington and the second in the state of Alaska.
