Washington (CNN) - After progress earlier this week in fiscal cliff negotiations, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner firmly butted heads Wednesday to set up a showdown in the final days left to reach an agreement.

The incremental negotiations had focused on a roughly $2 trillion package of new revenue, spending cuts and entitlement reforms the two sides have shaped into a broad deficit reduction plan.

Washington (CNN) – In the high-stakes poker of the fiscal cliff negotiations, House Speaker John Boehner is playing a game that could be called "Taxes Hold 'Em."

The chief Republican negotiator is navigating a perilous political path by agreeing to some kind of increase in tax rates for wealthy Americans - a fiscal sin in the eyes of conservatives - while pushing for more spending cuts and entitlement reforms desired by his party's base.

Washington (CNN) - Now we're getting somewhere.

Expected concessions by House Speaker John Boehner have moved negotiations on avoiding the fiscal cliff to a new level as the deadline for Congress to act shrinks to two weeks.

Washington (CNN) - Facing a looming deadline to avoid the fiscal cliff, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met Thursday for their first face-to-face talk in four days.

Boehner arrived for the previously unscheduled meeting just after 5 p.m. ET, a few hours after claiming Obama had failed to offer a serious compromise to prevent the fiscal cliff's automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in less than three weeks. He spent about 50 minutes in the White House, before returning to his office.