President Obama Could Enlist Mitt Romney’s Help At Lunch Meeting

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have a lunch meeting at the White House on Thursday, and some political insiders are speculating that the get-together could lead to a larger role in the upcoming fiscal cliff debate for Romney.

Though on its face the Obama-Romney lunch meeting seems like a courtesy between onetime rivals, National Constitution Center writer Scott Bombay wrote. Bombay speculated that the once bitter rivals could form a political alliance to tackle the upcoming fiscal cliff debate.

Obama and Democrats propose to tackle the end of the Bush tax cuts by letting the tax breaks for high-income individuals and families expire while extending them for the middle class, but Republicans have bristled at the idea of what they see as a tax hike.

As Bombay wrote, Obama could seek out some strategies from Romney on how to tackle the fiscal cliff issue:

“Romney was not in favor of raising taxes on higher income earners, because he believed it stunted the growth of business and hurt its ability to create jobs.

“Obama was critical of Romney’s philosophy about the fiscal cliff, especially his attacks on entitlement spending.

“However, one of Romney’s ideas on the campaign trail, a cap of income tax deductions for wealthier Americans, might become part of the negotiations in Congress in December.”

The White House announced the Obama-Romney lunch meeting on Wednesday, part of Obama’s campaign-style push to dissolve Republican resistance to his proposal to let tax cuts expire for high earners, Bloomberg noted.

“This debate is not just about numbers,” Obama said at an event aimed at promoting his plan. “It’s a set of major decisions that are going to affect millions of families all across the country.”

There could be a more simple explanation to the Obama-Romney lunch meeting. After the 2008 election, Obama had a similar meeting with John McCain that was largely a courtesy.