Updated 4:50 p.m. ET -- Republicans offered up their own proposal to avert the impending “fiscal cliff” on Monday amid Democratic demands that the GOP match the Obama administration’s plan with one of their own.

In a letter to President Barack Obama, House Republican leaders outlined the contours of a deal they said would achieve a net savings of $2.2 trillion. The plan, which is based on fiscal commission Democratic co-chairman Erskine Bowles’s proposal to the super committee, would achieve these savings through revenue from tax reforms, health savings and discretionary spending cuts.

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"Going over the cliff will hurt our economy and hurt job creation in our country. It’s one of the reasons the day after the election I offered a concession to try and speed this process up. Unfortunately, the White House responded with their ‘La-La-Land’ offer that couldn't pass the House or Senate and was basically the president’s budget from last February," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill at a briefing detailing the plan.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Speaker John Boehner speaks during a news conference, Nov. 30, 2012, on Capitol Hill.

"We could have responded in kind, but we decided not to do that. What we’re putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House and I would hope that they would respond in a timely and responsible way," the Ohio Republican added.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said the plan "does not meet the test of balance."

"Their plan includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve," he said. "While the president is willing to compromise to get a significant, balanced deal and believes that compromise is readily available to Congress, he is not willing to compromise on the principles of fairness and balance that include asking the wealthiest to pay higher rates ... Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won't be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs."  

The counter-offer coincides with Democratic demands that Republicans produce their own proposal to match the deal offered last week by the administration. That plan, presented to Republicans by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, called for $1.6 trillion in new revenues, savings from entitlement programs and new spending on unemployment insurance and investment projects. GOP leaders rejected the plan out-of-hand.

Still, the GOP proposal on Monday appears to move no further toward compromise on Obama’s central demand that tax rates be allowed to increase on the wealthiest Americans. While Republicans have agreed in principle that richer Americans can shoulder a greater share of the tax burden, they insist this must be achieved through ending loopholes and deductions, rather than raising rates.

The Republican plan, which is also backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., achieves its $2.2 trillion in several steps.

As Republicans put it, they would raise $800 billion in new revenue through tax reform, $600 billion in health savings, $200 billion from changes to the Consumer Price Index, $300 billion in discretionary spending cuts, and another $300 billion in savings in mandatory spending. Many of the health savings track closely with the changes to Medicare first proposed in Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s budgets.

Republicans say the plan, using the Obama administration’s math, would achieve $4.6 trillion in savings.

It’s unclear, though, whether the Republican plan would move toward ending the stalemate around the fiscal cliff negotiations, with less than a month remaining until the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts are scheduled to snap into place on Jan. 1.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pummeled his GOP colleagues earlier Monday afternoon, arguing that their failure to produce a counter-offer would only exacerbate the situation.

The new GOP plan reflects the posturing that has come to characterize these negotiations, separated just a month from an election which awarded Obama a second term and which kept Republicans in control of the House and Democrats in control of the Senate.

Also on Monday, the president continued his messaging offensive on Monday with a glossy campaign-style video highlighting the cost to families if the 2001 Bush-era tax cuts were allowed to expire at the end of this month. (Obama has argued they should be extended for all but the wealthiest 2 percent of U.S. households.)

Benjamin Myers / Reuters

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrives at Capitol Building before a meeting with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C., Nov. 29, 2012.

The president also took to Twitter to make the case for his own plan, answering questioners who used the informal 140-character medium to ask about the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Asked by one participant why he insists on increasing rates on the top 2 percent of earners rather than limiting deductions in order to raise revenues, the president replied that capping deductions alone would not raise adequate revenue. 

"Not enough revenue, unless you end charitable deductions, etc. [L]ess revenue=more cuts in education," he wrote.

The president also dismissed the GOP notion that lower taxes for the very wealthy have a trickle-down effect in terms of new hires and a larger tax pool. "High end tax cuts do least for economic growth & cost almost $1T," he wrote. "Extending middle class cuts boosts consumer demand & growth"

Obama also argued that his administration cut spending by $1 trillion last year and that he is open to further "smart cuts" as long as they don't affect education or job growth.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed to this report.

Updated 1:36 p.m. ET - Capitol Hill leaders emerged from their meeting Friday with President Barack Obama sounding optimistic about their ability to reach consensus on vexing tax and spending issues and avoid the impending "fiscal cliff."

Just weeks before an end of year deadline -- when a series of income tax cuts are set to expire just as billions in automatic spending cuts stipulated in the 2011 debt ceiling deal will take effect -- House and Senate leaders suggested they had made progress during their first meeting with President Barack Obama since he won re-election last week. 

"I think we're all aware that we have some urgent business to do," Obama said at the top of the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to his right and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to his left.

That urgency, apparently, was not lost on Republican and Democratic leaders who appeared jointly after the hourlong meeting to express their optimism that a deal was within reach. The word of the day was "constructive," a term which each leader used to describe their talks on Friday.

"I feel very good about what we were able to talk about in there," said Reid. "We have the cornerstones of being able to work something out."

Boehner, the GOP speaker who faces a tough task in convincing conservatives to sign off on any final deal, referenced a framework he's offered tying tax reform to changes in entitlement programs as keeping with Obama's own goals. 

"I believe that the framework that I've outlined is consistent with the president's call for a fair and balanced approach," he said following the meeting. 

Both Obama and Republican leaders in Congress have sketched broad outlines for the type of deal on which they could agree. The president has insisted that wealthier Americans share a higher tax burden as part of any deal's outcome, an idea on which he campaigned against GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

"Our challenge is to make sure that we are able to cooperate together, work together, find some common ground, make some tough compromises, build some consensus to do the people's business," the president said at the top of the meeting, adding later: "My hope is this is going to be the beginning of a fruitful process where we're able to come to an agreement that will reduce our deficit in a balanced way and deal with some of the long-term impediments to growth."

Boehner's office suggested after the meeting that the leaders' focus would turn to setting long-term targets on levels of taxing, spending and entitlement reform that could be presented to lawmakers after Thanksgiving.

Pool / Getty Images

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Speaker of the House John Boehner during a meeting with bipartisan group of congressional leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on November 16, 2012 in Washington, DC.

Republicans have said they are open to new revenue, as long as it is the byproduct of tax reforms that lower rates and close loopholes and limit deductions. Boehner has also said tax reforms should be linked with steps toward shoring up the solvency of entitlement programs.

"I can say on the part of my members that we fully understand that you can't save the country until you have entitlement programs that fit the demographics of a changing America in the coming years," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., following the meeting. "We're prepared to put revenue on the table provided we fix the real problem, even though most of my members -- I think, without exception -- believe we're in the dilemma we're in not because we tax too little, but because we spend too much."

Nonetheless, the leaders' tone following the meeting was a marked departure from much of the toxic rhetoric that had enveloped Washington for much of 2011, when a standoff between Republicans in Congress and Obama brought the government to the brink of shutdown several times and almost produced a default on the national debt.

"The president and the leadership had a constructive meeting and agreed to do everything possible to find a solution that averts the so-called 'fiscal cliff.' and to work together to find a balanced approach to reduce our deficit that includes both revenues and cuts in spending and encourages our long-term economic and job growth," White House press secretary Jay Carney said of the meeting. "Both sides agreed that while there may be differences in our preferred approaches, we will continue a constructive process to find a solution and come to a conclusion as soon as possible."

That August 2011 debt deal produced the series of automatic spending cuts, known as the "sequester," as part of the deal to extract an agreement to raise the debt limit. The sequester would inflict heavy and immediate cuts, especially to the defense budget, and was designed purposefully as such to offer lawmakers a political incentive to reach some sort of fiscal alternative. 

Complicating matters are the 2001 Bush income tax cuts, which were extended for two years by Obama in 2010, which are set to automatically expire (along with a payroll tax break) at the end of this year.

But talks over how to best address the looming sequester stalled for much of 2012, putting lawmakers now against a heard deadline to reach a deal. Economists have worried that the combined effect of tax hikes and spending cuts would have a perilous effect on the economy.

Adding to the encouraging signs, both Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested that they could reach a deal before the end of the year. In Pelosi's case, she urged her colleagues to adopt a deadline before Christmas. 

Lawmakers are away from Washington on recess for the Thanksgiving holiday next week, during which, Reid said, talks would continue on how to best address the fiscal cliff. He said the leaders hoped to meet with Obama again shortly after the break. 

If the U.S. government ends up careening off the "fiscal cliff," Republicans in Congress stand to shoulder most of the blame, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

A majority of Americans said in a new, post-election poll that they do not expect President Barack Obama and members of Congress to reach an agreement to avoid the effects of the fiscal cliff, the combination of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes set to take effect at the beginning of the year.

Fifty-three percent of Americans said Republicans in Congress would be more to blame in that instance, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in the days following the election. Twenty-nine percent said that Obama would be more to blame, while 10 percent said both the president and Republicans would share blame.

Those kinds of numbers help set the political landscape heading into the impending fight to resolve the long-running fiscal standoff, which features an emboldened Obama fresh off a re-election victory and a Republican Party looking to regain its footing in Washington after losing seats in the House and Senate in addition to Mitt Romney's White House loss.

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Lawmakers on Capitol Hill returned to work on Tuesday to begin sorting out these issues and beginning to work on some internal affairs, including choosing their own leadership teams for the next two years.

But just a few weeks separate the U.S. from the onset of the fiscal cliff, as the 2001 Bush tax cuts and the 2010 payroll tax cut are set to expire at the end of this calendar year. On top of that, the automatic spending cuts -- which fall heavily on the defense budget -- will also take place beginning in January unless Congress acts first.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks at a press conference as Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., listen on Capitol Hill Sept. 20, 2012 in Washington, DC.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans said in the Pew poll that they would expect the impact of the fiscal cliff to be major, and 70 percent said they expect the fallout from the fiscal cliff to be mostly negative.

The president hosted labor leaders at the White House on Tuesday morning in anticipation of the upcoming negotiations, and Obama will host business leaders on Wednesday. Leaders in Congress from both parties head to the White House for talks on Friday.

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Both Obama and Republicans in Congress have begun laying out parameters for those negotiations, and White House press secretary Jay Carney reiterated on Tuesday afternoon that the president would not sign any law extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Obama has instead called on Congress to extend all tax rates except for those in the top income bracket.

(Republicans have called for broader talks that link an overhaul in the tax code to entitlement program reforms.)

The Pew poll was conducted Nov. 8-11 and has a 3.7 percent margin of error.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, finishes a prepared statement to reporters about the elections and the unfinished business of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, emerged in the aftermath of Tuesday’s presidential election to strike a conciliatory note, offering to work with President Barack Obama on a grand bargain to avert the impact of the coming fiscal cliff.

The top House Republican argued for new negotiations with Democrats and the newly re-elected Obama administration on an overarching fiscal deal linking together reforms to entitlements and the tax code.

Boehner said that Republicans would be “willing to accept new revenue, under the right conditions,” though those very conditions could be as beguiling as ever.

The speaker offered no clue as to whether Republicans would relent from their insistence (made during fiscal negotiations last year) that any sort of tax reform package not constitute anything even remotely resembling a tax hike.

Obama has spoken favorably about tax reform – including during his victory speech last night in Chicago – but in such a way that wealthier Americans would face the increased tax burden.

Resolving that very open question could prove the key to resolving – or exacerbating – the fiscal impasse that has plagued Washington for the better part of the last two years.

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“Shoring up entitlements and reforming the tax code – closing special interest loopholes and deductions, and moving to a fairer, simpler system – will bring jobs home and result in a stronger, healthier economy,” Boehner said during a Wednesday afternoon statement on Capitol Hill.

By the same token, the speaker suggested that a deal was untenable during the coming lame-duck Congress, calling for a “down payment” on fiscal reform that would give both parties ample space to negotiate in early 2013.

Full national election results

Boehner’s words reflected the immediacy of the challenge before lawmakers in the coming weeks if they are to successfully avoid the “fiscal cliff,” the nickname for the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to spring into place at the beginning of next year.

Economists have warned that this combination, the byproduct of legislative gridlock on issues of tax and spending during the last two years, would imperil the economic recovery in the U.S.

The election on Tuesday maintained Republican control of the House, Democratic control of the Senate and, Obama’s control of the White House – the same basic makeup of government that produced gridlock on fiscal issues for the past two years.

The White House said Wednesday that Obama, just hours after securing re-election, phoned leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate. During those call, the president “reiterated his commitment to finding bipartisan solutions to: reduce our deficit in a balanced way, cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses and create jobs.”

But as Boehner called for more time to address the looming fiscal crisis, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested he was disinclined to extend the timeline for reaching a deal.

“I’m not for kicking the can down the road. I think we’ve done that far too much,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “Waiting for a month, six weeks, six months – that’s not going to solve the problem. We know what needs to be done, so I think we should just roll up our sleeves and get it done.”

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The dueling statements, though, set the parameters for fiscal talks that are set to dominate political discourse in the coming months.

The fight plays out amid election results that, as Vice President Joe Biden asserted on Wednesday, provided the administration with a “clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy.”

Almost two-thirds of voters, according to national exit polls, said “no” when asked whether taxes should be raised to help cut the budget deficit. But 47 percent of voters, a plurality, said that taxes should increase only on those earning more than $250,000 – a centerpiece of Obama’s re-election campaign on which Obama stumped this fall.

Barring any action by Congress, tax rates would spring upward for all income brackets as the 2001 Bush-era tax cuts, which were extended for two years in 2009, expired.

The spending “sequester,” established by Congress during the 2011 debt ceiling deal as an incentive for lawmakers to reach a compromise budgetary solution, is also set to take effect at the beginning of next year absent an agreement by Congress. Republicans have grown especially worrisome about the sequester because of the heavy cuts it would make to the defense budget.

As the business of legislating resumes, a key actor in the process could be Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the former Republican vice presidential nominee who lost Tuesday as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Ryan simultaneously won re-election to Congress, and said Wednesday in a statement that he intends to resume his post as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Even before voters finished casting ballots in House races across the country, the Republican leadership in the chamber began girding for a major battle over taxes and spending in the weeks after the election.

Confident that Republicans would retain their majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told POLITICO that GOP lawmakers would reject any new taxes on households in the highest income tax bracket.

"We’re not raising taxes on small-business people," Boehner said. "Our majority is going to get re-elected ... We’ll have as much of a mandate as he will — if that happens — to not raise taxes."

Al Behrman / AP

Speaker John Boehner talks with reporters outside Ronald Reagan Lodge after voting, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, in West Chester, Ohio.

Consider Boehner's comments the first public salvo in a coming battle over how to best address the so-called "fiscal cliff," the mixture of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect at the beginning of 2013.

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The fiscal cliff involves the expiration of the 2001 Bush tax cuts for all tax brackets and a two-year payroll tax cut, both of which are scheduled to sunset at the end of this year, barring action by Congress. Also set to take effect are the automatic spending cuts set forth in the 2011 debt ceiling deal, which were designed to be so distasteful that lawmakers would reach a compromise on how to best address mounting U.S. debt.

A standoff between the Obama administration, a Democratic Senate and a conservative Republican House of Representatives yielded no deal, leaving the fiscal cliff in its stead. Economists have warned that, if nothing happens to change those deadlines, any economic recovery would be imperiled. Moreover, the cuts fall heavily upon the defense budget, a cut which military leaders have warned could endanger American security.

This gridlock might dissipate if voters elect Romney as president on Tuesday. But if Obama wins a second term and the Senate stays in Democratic hands, the stalemate that helped produce so much disillusionment and nastiness this election could rear its head again in the coming weeks.

"You have to do something, and the best way to do it is by growing the economy," California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republicans' whip in the House, said Tuesday on MSNBC. "Now, we are going to have a fiscal cliff between now and the end of the year -- from the debt limit to the looming tax increases to sequestration. But all those ideas have been passed by the House to solve those. It's the Senate that has not acted."

That rhetoric might sound familiar to any reader who has tracked the incessant bickering between the Obama administration and Congress over the past two years.

But amid the bluster that has begun to emerge from Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama's team seemed more upbeat.

"This election, when the president's re-elected, should break this fever of Washington gridlock," Obama adviser Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, said on MSNBC. "It's time that Republicans come to the table and understand that we've got to get something done on the big pressing issues of our time."

DURANGO, Colo. -- In the midst of a three-day swing of Colorado, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan had a special guest join him on the trail Monday: Speaker of the House John Boehner.

“You know, 22 years ago, I was running for congress for the first time,” Boehner said. “And you know, if they can’t say your name, they probably aren’t going to vote for you. Look at my name: Beaner. Bonner. Boner. I had no chance of winning, except I thought I could win. And during that campaign 22 years ago, I had a student at Miami of Ohio putting yard signs up for me named Paul Ryan. I’ve known Paul Ryan for a long time. You’re never going to find a more decent person on the face of the Earth.”

Taking the stage for the first time with the speaker on the campaign trail since being tapped as Mitt Romney’s running mate, Ryan said, “Hey, it's nice to see John ‘Boner’ here today, isn't it?”

Ryan continued in front of a roughly 1,500 person crowd at Fort Lewis College: “It's a true story, but I would put up yard signs as a young guy in college, I had no idea how to pronounce his name. But serving with him for 14 years, we kind of figured it out. John Boehner is a good man; he is a small business man who came to Congress to fight for jobs, and that's exactly what's he's doing."

The GOP vice-presidential nominee has been out campaigning in the Centennial State since Sunday evening and is holding three events in the battleground state today.

According to a CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac poll from the beginning of October, the race here was a tossup, with Romney holding the narrow edge 48 percent to 47 percent. And in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, President Obama and Romney are in a dead heat nationally -- both getting 47 percent of support among likely voters.

Early voting in the state started today with just 15 days until Election Day. Colorado has nine electoral votes up for grabs.

“We need your vote; we need your help. Early voting starts today so all I am simply saying is help us, we need your vote. Help us get this country back on the right track. We know who we are and we know what we believe and we can do this and get this done,” Ryan said speaking at a campaign rally outside of Vision Mechanical in Pueblo, CO, this morning.

Only continuing to show the importance of Colorado in the Nov 6^th election, both Romney and Ryan will hold a joint campaign rally here on Tuesday following the final presidential debate Monday evening. The GOP ticket will be joined in Morrison, CO, by Kid Rock and country singer Rodney Adkins plus New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.

The House adjourned Friday at its earliest date before an election, finishing legislative business 46 days before Election Day.

Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder (R) gaveled out the day’s last vote at 12:12 p.m. on Friday afternoon, marking a historic moment for the House of Representatives, which has not adjourned this early before an election in over 50 years.

All told, lawmakers gathered for a grand total of eight legislative days since leaving for their annual summer break in early August. Those eight days all took place this month, following the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

House members leave Washington with major business left unfinished, too. No progress was made on undoing the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the combination of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes set to spring into place in January. And lawmakers went home to campaign for re-election without having resolved their differences to pass a farm bill.

The historic nature of the adjournment was not lost on House Democrats, who held an event to chastise Republicans for "cutting and running" in the face of some of the largest economic issues facing our country in decades.

"This is simply irresponsible, and Republicans ought to come back and finish their work, not cut and run and walk away from the American people," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said at the event, "Shame on them, shame on them for abandoning our farmers, our economy, and families that need us to act."

The harsh reality of adjourning today is that Congress will have more work to do during its lame duck session – the time between an election and the inauguration of the next Congress – than in any post-election session in recent history.  The laundry list of items that needs to be dealt with has been deemed the "fiscal cliff," simply because if Congress does not act the US economy will likely plunge back into recession according to most economists.

Included in the items that Congress needs to act on is the Bush-era tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.  Congress also needs to decide what to do about automatic, across-the-board, cuts that are scheduled to take place on January 2nd as a result of the failure of the supercommittee. 

Congress will also need to pass a farm bill before year's end, and lawmakers will have to decide whether they want to extend the payroll tax cut for another year, even though all indications are that they will let that expire.

But instead of dealing with these issues before the November elections, there has been no tangible toward compromise by either side, and Republicans in the House have been focusing more on messaging bills that they can cite while campaigning back home in their districts.

Among those messaging bills was a Republican resolution passed Thursday to condemn what they allege is President Obama’s waiver of welfare reform’s work requirements. Even Republican vice presidential nominee Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) made it back to vote for the resolution, which was based on a dubious claim about the nature of the waiver authorized by Obama.

Rep John Larson (D-CT) cited the bill as an example of the Republicans "cutting and running."

"The only requirement for work is that Republicans stay here and work instead of cutting and running," Larson said.

To that end, between August, September, and October of this year, the House will have only been in session a total of 12 days.

While those three months of the year typically carry a smaller workload during election years (House members need to campaign every two years to hold onto their jobs), the 12 legislative days the House is in session during that three-month period is less than that same period in any other presidential election year in over three decades. 

Comparing it to recent history, the 12 days in 2012 is less than the 19 days the House was in session during those same three months in 2008 (during which the financial crisis resulted in more days than were previously scheduled), and the 20 days it was in session during that same time in 2004.

DAYS IN SESSION DURING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEARS (AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER)

2012 (scheduled):

• August - 4
• September - 8
• October - 0
• TOTAL - 12

2008:

• August - 1
• September - 16
• October - 2
• TOTAL - 19

2004:

• August - 0
• September - 14
• October - 6
• TOTAL - 20

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) defended the schedule on Friday, citing the passage of Republican bills to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts, and a bill to rework the automatic defense cuts, as examples of how Republicans are passing legislation that the Senate refuses to consider.

"We have done our work, but here Senate Democrats and a President, where is their responsibility?" Boehner said, "Where is their leadership? It just doesn't exist."

House Democratic leaders sent Boehner a letter on Thursday asking the speaker to cancel the adjournment so they could address the fiscal cliff, saying leaving DC "would be a dereliction of our duty to lead; it does not honor our responsibility to the American people."

Boehner turned the letter back against Senate Democrats, repeating a common refrain in the political game of ping-pong in which both sides blame the other house of Congress for their inability to act.

"When you think about the letter that they sent to me, about us not doing our work, how about the 40 jobs bills that are sitting in the United States Senate," Boehner said today.

The back and forth, which leads to nothing getting done, has taken its toll on Congress as a whole.  Recent approval ratings for Congress float just above 10 percent, and members are going back to their constituents knowing they have sent fewer bills to the President's desk than any Congress since World War II.

Currently, the House is scheduled to return to work on Nov. 13, with 12 legislative days on the calendar before the end of the year.  Fewer than two weeks of work could be an impossibly short amount of time to finish addressing so many issues, considering the supercommittee failed to reach a consensus after almost four months of negotiations.

House Speaker John Boehner suggested Friday that Mitt Romney's difficulties in Ohio might be attributable, ironically, to the success of the state's Republican governor.

Boehner, the Republican from southwestern Ohio, praised the work Gov. John Kasich, who has presided over a decreasing unemployment rate in the Buckeye State (though that's partly attributable to a shrinking labor force).

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But the speaker suggested, too, that Obama might be benefitting in the key swing state of Ohio from perceptions that the economy has improved.

"One of the things that probably works against Romney in Ohio is that Governor Kasich has done such a good job of fixing government regulations in the state, attracting new businesses in the state so our unemployment in Ohio is lower than the national average," Boehner said in response to a question from NBC News at his press conference on Capitol Hill.

"As a matter of fact, I think it's a full point lower so as a result people are still concerned about the economy and jobs in Ohio but it certainly isn't like what you see in some other places," the speaker added.

Obama led Romney, 50 to 43 percent, among likely voters in Ohio in last week's NBC News-Marist-Wall Street Journal poll.

House Speaker John Boehner avoided directly answering questions about Mitt Romney’s recent comments in a leaked video suggesting that 47 percent of Americans won't vote for him because of their "dependence" on government.

"This election is about jobs, we've said it for 20 months and it hasn't changed," the nation's top elected Republican said about the surreptitiously-recorded comments made by Romney at a closed-door fundraiser in May.

Boehner himself rose from humble beginnings to become speaker, though that background -- of which he was reminded by NBC News -- didn't seem to co0lor the Ohio Republican's perception of Romney.

"Listen, the election is about jobs, it's not about anything else.  I've had family members who've lost their jobs in this downturn, two of my brothers, two of my brother-in-laws.  I know what is happening out there and I know how difficult this economy is," he said at his weekly press conference.

He continued: “You're going to have both campaigns on both sides say things that get off the message.  The message is let's stay focused on jobs because that's what the American people want us to stay focused on.”

Romney's recently-revealed comments have added to the challenges facing his campaign, inviting criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike. But Boehner dismissed the reaction as "political hand-wringing by these Washington insiders trying to make this race look like it's over for the president."

Boehner added of Romney: "He’s going to win, well, Gallup is obviously the largest polling firm out there…they got this as a one-point race.”

Boehner also referenced the Bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004 as to why he has confidence in Romney winning the presidency.

"In 2000 and 2004, the Bush ground game that got him elected was -- surpassed anything that we had ever done. The Romney ground game today has already exceeded the number of voter contacts that were made in all of 2004.”

GOP aides tell NBC News that Boehner will be hitting the campaign trail aggressively once Congress recesses until after the election on Friday. As speaker, Boehner is one of the party’s most prolific fundraisers and best-known advocates and will play an important role in trying to secure Ohio for the Romney campaign.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Tuesday that he is "not confident at all" that Congress can reach a deal with President Barack Obama to avoid the effects of the so-called "fiscal cliff" before January.

"I'm not confident at all," Boehner exclaimed at his weekly press conference when asked if he thought lawmakers could reach a deal during the lame-duck Congress to avert a series of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that would trigger into place at the beginning of the next year.

"The House has done its job on both the sequester and the looming tax hikes that will cost our economy some 700,000 jobs," the Republican speaker continued. "The Senate at some point has to act. On both of these where's the president? Where's the leadership? Absent without leave."

The fiscal cliff represents the combined impact of the inability this term in Congress to resolve the future of the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of this year, and a long-term solution to mounting deficits to replace the automatic cuts -- which fall heavily on defense spending -- that were included in the 2011 deal to raise the debt ceiling.

Because the bipartisan "supercommittee" was unable to agree upon a plan to replace these automatic cuts (called the "sequester"), Congress must now scramble to cobble together an alternative. Economists warn the combined effects of the tax hikes and spending cuts would imperil an already-shaky economy. House Republicans have passed legislation to avoid the mandatory defense cuts by slashing spending from social programs, a proposal which Democrats have rejected.

The mere specter of additional gridlock over the fiscal cliff prompted credit ratings agency Moody's to warn officials about a downgrade in its outlook on U.S. debt, long considered one of the most secure holdings of debt. The ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded its rating of U.S. debt a notch after the debt-ceiling battles in August of 2011.

"It was a difficult time. I still look at my failure to come to an agreement with the president as the biggest disappointment of my speakership," Boehner said in reflecting on that period, which is detailed in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward. "But I don't think there's anybody that's worked harder than Eric and I to try and work with the president to come to an agreement."

The immediacy of the fight over the fiscal cliff is further complicated by November's elections, which could change the composition of Congress and even replace Obama with Mitt Romney in the White House. The makeup of the next Congress and administration will inevitably shape and constrain lawmakers' ability to cut deals during the lame-duck Congress -- the period between the election and the inauguration of the new Congress.

And already, blame is being spread around.

"Look at Mr. Woodward's book this morning on page 326, it is made perfectly clear where the sequester came from," Boehner said. "The president didn't want his re-election inconvenienced by another fight by a $1.2 trillion dollar increase in the debt ceiling. Having said that, somehow we have to deal with our spending problem. America continues to spend more money than we bring in and we have to resolve it and stop this business of kicking the can down the road."

Speaker John Boehner told his Republican House members Tuesday night that "Paul Ryan gives us the ability to go on offense" in the battle over Medicare following Ryan's selection as Mitt Romney's running mate.

That message, described by senior aides, came during a regular recess conference call while members are home in their districts and campaigning for re-election.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Speaker John Boehner talks about a lunch meeting with President Obama to deal with rising gasoline prices, at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 29, 2012.

Boehner appeared to offer reassurance saying, "The pundits are buzzing that with Paul on the ticket, the Democrats are going to attack us on Medicare.  Well, here's a news flash -- they were gonna do that anyway."  

GOP leadership wants voters to hear their argument that Republicans are "the only ones" who have taken action to preserve Medicare in the budget they passed while the president's health care law they claim, "raided Medicare by $700 billion."

The speaker stressed that jobs and the economy must remain their top issues, but he also gave guidance on how House Republicans should frame other key arguments. On Romney's tax returns, Boehner pointed to Ryan's "60 Minutes" response: "The American people aren't asking where are the tax returns; they're asking, 'Where are the jobs?'" On stalled drought relief, Boehner pointed out that the president, in Iowa, criticized Ryan for congressional inaction. Boehner countered that the House did pass its version of help for farmers while the Senate did not tackle drought relief.

Boehner accused President Obama of being "desperate to shift the conversation away from his record on jobs and the economy." The speaker encouraged an aggressive stay on offense strategy saying, "If we keep that kind of focus and discipline, the American people will be with us."

Yet on the issue of Medicare, Democrats today fired back, with Sen. Chuck Schumer issuing this memo:

The case for Paul Ryan goes something like this: even if you disagree with his policy ideas, his proposals at least represent a good-faith appeal for deficit reduction that is both serious and statesmanlike.

This appears to be the message Mitt Romney hopes to sell with his risky selection of Ryan as his running mate. But it is an utter myth. In Ryan's budget, the savings achieved by his plan to privatize Medicare and gut investments in the middle class do not go towards reducing the deficit, but rather to pay for further tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Senate's top Democrat announced Tuesday that he and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had reached an agreement to keep the government open and funded through early next year.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that he and Boehner had agreed on a temporary, six-month extension of government funding in order to avert a Sept. 30 government shutdown unless Congress had acted.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announces to reporters on Capitol Hill July 31 that lawmakers have reached an agreement to keep the government running on autopilot for six months when the current budget year ends on Sept. 30.

"This agreement reached between the Senate, the House and the White House provides stability for the coming months, when we will have to resolve critical issues that directly affect middle class families," Reid said on Capitol Hill.

The six-month bill will maintain the topline funding level of $1.047 trillion, Reid said, announcing as well that a vote on the extension is likely for early September.

The agreement allows lawmakers to avoid the specter of a shutdown with just weeks to go until Election Day, a motivating factor that prodded negotiators to reach a deal. A Republican leadership aide told NBC News that the GOP did not want to risk a distraction from its central messaging on President Obama's economic record.

"Taking this issue off the table will keep the larger focus on jobs, the economy, and President Obama's failed economic policies," the aide said. "That's where Republicans win and Democrats lose."

The topline number was taken from the "Budget Control Act" passed last year by Congress to prevent a default on the nation's debt. Both Democrats and Republicans each achieved some of their goals in this deal, too. Conservative Republicans had wanted to cut the toplinenumber -- over the objections of Democrats -- but had agreed to maintain current spending levels in exchange for a six-month extension instead of the yearlong deal Democrats had preferred.

Appropriators will work up the legislation's formal language over the August recess, and its formal passage seems to be more of a formality considering the joint agreement between Reid, Boehner and President Obama. While a GOP operative told NBC News that some “discontent amongst the real conservative rank and file is possible” because the bill won’t cut current spending, it probably would not be enough to jeopardize the bill’s passage in the House.

Not to be lost, because the agreement only lasts six months, the expiration of this deal in early 2013 will add to a large, looming and contentious budget fight set for the beginning of the 113th Congress.