Fiscal Cliff 2013: Obama Meets With Labor, Liberal Leaders, Shuns Bankers

As his second week after reelection approaches, President Obama is preparing for a showdown with Republicans over the fiscal cliff.

Today he'll meet with labor leaders and representatives of liberal and Democratic groups that supported him during his campaign, like the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association and MoveOn.org.

After a resounding victory over the Republicans and their refusal to raise taxes on wealthy Americans, the groups are expected to petition the president to stand his ground.

While not opposed to compromise per se, many liberals are afraid Obama will give the Republicans too much, agreeing to cuts in Social Security, Medicare.

Obama has insisted that some cuts will be necessary, but last week he insisted he would press for an end to the Bush-era tax cuts on people making over $250,000 a year.

Republicans are striking a conciliatory tone, but House Speaker John Boehner declared that the path to increasing revenue lies exclusively in closing tax loopholes and ending many deductions.

Both sides will need to come to some kind of compromise soon, since on Jan. 1 of next year, all the Bush-era tax cuts will expire, income and payroll taxes will rise on all Americans, and deep across-the-board cuts to social programs, education and the military will kick in.

Obama is expected to meet with lawmakers from both parties on Friday.

In the meantime, he'll meet with CEOs and business leaders on Wednesday. The meeting could be awkward for those businesspeople, as many of them publically and financially supported Mitt Romney over the president in the election.

The guests in Wednesday's meeting include the CEOs of Aetna, Xerox, American Express and Wal-Mart.

Notably absent from the meeting are financial executives and representatives of the big banks and hedge funds, who are persona non grata at the White House right now.

Most of the country blames them for the financial collapse, and it's likely the consulting with the architects of the current recession would reflect poorly on a president looking to improve the economy.