Boehner: Congress key to budget deal

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WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- President Obama might not be the key player in the ongoing U.S. budget battle, House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday.

The Republican House leader said on ABC's "This Week" the end game in the partisan standoff over taxes and spending would probably be the result of negotiations by Congress.

"I don't know whether we can come to a big agreement," Boehner said. "If we do, it will be between the two parties on Capitol Hill."

Boehner restated the GOP stance that tax hikes were already agreed to, and the Democrats needed to commit to spending cuts. He added the recent dinner meetings at the White with Obama and congressional leaders of both parties were a good opportunity to break bread, but didn't do much to break the deadlock.

"It is always a good thing to engage in more conversation, engage more members in the conversation that had not been involved up until this point," Boehner observed. "But if you get down to the bottom line where the president believes that we have to have more taxes from the American people, we're not going to get very far."