White House press secretary Jay Carney on Monday declined to elaborate on President Barack Obama’s plans to wage a grassroots messaging campaign in conjunction with the negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff.
"It would ruin the fun if I gave you all the details now," Carney said.
Party leaders have a matter of weeks to agree a deal to avoid going over the "fiscal cliff," the term used to describe more than $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to occur on Jan. 1, 2013.
The Congressional Budget Office has warned that going over the cliff could trigger another economic recession.
Obama met with the leaders of labor unions and other left-wing groups to discuss the fiscal cliff negotiations shortly after winning reelection, and before meeting with members of the business community.
Such left-wing groups have urged the president to ignore calls for deficit reduction through spending cuts and entitlement reform, arguing that the fiscal cliff be resolved only through tax increases on the wealthy and additional deficit-financed spending.