Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama has invited congressional leaders from both parties to join him in a meeting to discuss what to do in the waning days of the current Congress, vowing Thursday that it will "not be just a photo-op".
"I want us to talk substantively about how to move the American people's agenda forward," Obama said.
The meeting is set for November 18, Obama said, following elections Tuesday in which his Democratic Party lost control of the House of Representatives and saw its Senate majority reduced. Current members of Congress keep their jobs until the end of the year in what's known as the "lame-duck" session.
Obama said he wants the meeting to discuss the future of the Bush-era tax cuts that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Republicans and Democrats disagree about how to extend them.
The president calls for extending the lower tax rates for income up to $200,000 a year for individuals or $250,000 a year for families. Income above those levels would be taxed at rates from the 1990s, before the tax cuts were enacted in 2001 and 2003.
Most Republicans oppose letting anyone's tax rates go up, including the 2 percent of the population that earns income greater than the thresholds proposed by Obama.
CNN
