Bonanza: Nation’s new leaders: Jack Lew and Tim Geithner

“The outcome of yesterday's long-awaited powwow between President Obama and the Republican congressional leadership was a plan for further powwows -- these helmed by OMB director Jack Lew and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and including one negotiator from both parties from both chambers -- meant to get past the impasse over the Bush tax cuts. Which is to say, the White House just took ownership of this process. A bad deal is now their bad deal. A failure to reach a deal is now their failure to reach a deal. And one of those outcomes is probably more likely than a great deal that somehow makes everyone happy.

The White House could've left this to Congress and simply run against -- and vetoed -- any outcomes they didn't like. That they're inserting themselves this directly is surprising considering that many in the building believe the legislator-in-chief role Obama assumed over the last two years yoked them to congressional dealmaking and sunk their popularity. It suggests, actually, that this approach is encoded deeper in the administration's DNA than some previously thought.

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Obama and Congressional Republicans launched negotiations on extending the Bush tax cuts yesterday, report Shailagh Murray and Perry Bacon: "The most tangible publicly announced accomplishment in the two-hour closed-door session was an agreement to form a bipartisan group to seek a solution to the impasse over taxes. The group - Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, White House budget director Jacob Lew and two lawmakers from each party - held its first meeting Tuesday afternoon...What could break the logjam is a deal to extend all the cuts temporarily, along with horse-trading on other issues important to both parties, according to people present at the White House meeting."

The fiscal commission will release -- but will probably not agree on -- a plan, reports Lori Montgomery: "Co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan K. Simpson said they would release their final blueprint when the commission convenes Wednesday morning. Like the original, they said the new plan would offer an aggressive prescription for reducing deficits by nearly $4 trillion by the end of the decade. But the panel's 18 members - including a dozen sitting lawmakers from both parties - will have until Friday to review the document and decide whether to support it. After two days of one-on-one meetings with their members, Bowles and Simpson acknowledged that it will be difficult to assemble the 14 votes that would allow them to issue official recommendations."

The commission will release its report at 9:30am today: And you'll be able to download it here.”