White House Opens Door to Chamber on Fiscal Cliff Talks

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce shouts “JOBS” with two-story-tall block letters strung on its building facing the White House.

Until today, that was the closest the business trade association got to President Barack Obama’s talks on skirting the fiscal cliff, a $607 billion combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to take effect in January. Thomas J. Donohue, president of the chamber, met this afternoon with White House aides, said Sally-Shannon Birkel, a spokeswoman for the chamber.