[ by Larry Goldfarb ]

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner went to the capital in an attempt to begin the process of developing a compromise to avert the fiscal cliff.  The meetings come a day after  President Barack Obama won backing from some corporate executives to raise taxes as part of a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. The meeting with lawmakers are being held a day after chief executives from more than a dozen U.S. corporations shuttled from the Capitol to the White House and pressed for an agreement to prevent triggering automatic spending cuts and tax increases on Jan. 1. “I came out of this meeting optimistic, extraordinarily optimistic that Washington broadly understands the importance of getting something done,” Deloitte LLP Chief Executive Officer Joe Echevarria said last night after spending more than an hour with Obama and his top aides at the White House.

• Obama telephoned House Speaker John Boehner last night, said a White House official who asked for anonymity to discuss the private call. The conversation occurred after Obama met with the business executives who were pushing for action.

• Democrats are insisting that Americans in the top 2 percent of income pay higher taxes. Republicans say they are open to higher revenue only if the U.S. overhauls the tax code and entitlement programs. Republicans have “the expectation that the White House team will bring a specific plan for real spending cuts,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner.

• The deadline to avoid the fiscal cliff is approaching as the U.S. economy expanded at a “measured pace” in recent weeks, the Federal Reserve said in its Beige Book business survey yesterday. Gains in consumer demand and housing were tempered by a slowdown in manufacturing. The Fed said that seven of 12 districts reported “either slowing or outright contraction in manufacturing” as some contacts “expressed concern about the outlook for 2013, in part, due to the uncertainty regarding the outcome of the fiscal cliff.”

• Positive remarks by Boehner and Obama helped U.S. stocks erase early losses yesterday. The Standard & Poor’s (SPX) 500 Index closed up 0.8% at 1,409.93 in New York after earlier slumping 1 percent. The S&P 500 added 0.4%.

• Obama yesterday again urged Congress to extend all but the top income tax rates even before a broader deal is reached to give certainty to middle-income families as the holiday season approaches. Obama wants to let Bush-era tax cuts expire for households earning more than $250,000 a year.

• Three out of four global investors in a Bloomberg Global Poll conducted on Nov. 27 said they expect Obama and congressional leaders to reach a short-term agreement. The survey of 862 Bloomberg customers who are investors, traders or analysts found that 40 percent expect financial markets to rise after a short-term tax-and-spending deal. Only 6 percent of investors anticipate a political impasse.

Obama has public support for his position, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. Sixty percent of those surveyed Nov. 21-25 said they favored raising taxes on those with incomes of $250,000 a year or more. Two-thirds opposed raising the Medicare eligibility age as a way to cut entitlement spending. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.