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STORY: U.S. President Barack Obama said it may take weeks or months before Republicans are willing to compromise on the budget standoff.
As the U.S. government hurtled on Friday toward deep spending cuts that threaten to hinder the nation's economic recovery, Obama met Republican and Democratic leaders at the White House in search of an alternative fiscal plan.
The inflexible plan, locked in during a bout of deficit-reduction fever in 2011, initiates time-released, across-the-board cuts that can only be halted by agreement between Congress and the White House.
That deal has proved elusive so far.
