Senate GOP leader talks of bipartisan solution

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says GOP lawmakers are working on trying to come up with a bipartisan solution to the budget stalemate.

Returning from a two-hour meeting at the White House, McConnell told reporters Friday that the session with President Barack Obama was useful and he hoped that Senate Republicans could find a way out of the impasse.

Senate Republicans have had several private discussions on how to end the partial government shutdown, now in its 11th day, and avert a catastrophic economic default.

Obama held discussions with Senate Republicans at the White House Friday morning.

House GOP, White House seeking end to budget fight

Officials say House Republicans are offering to pass legislation to avert a default and end the partial government shutdown as part of a package that includes cuts in benefit programs.

Senior aides to Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor outlined the proposal at a late-night White House meeting Thursday with senior administration officials.

In addition to ending the shutdown and increasing the debt limit, the proposal includes an easing of the across-the-board spending cuts that began taking effect a year ago, and replacing them with curbs in benefit programs that Obama himself has backed.

Among them is a plan to raise the cost of Medicare for better-off beneficiaries.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss private deliberations.

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