Obama and Congress leaders struggle to reach US budget deal

US President Barack Obama and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal but narrowed their differences on Thursday in a bitter budget dispute that could lead to a government shutdown.Obama said negotiators would work all night and he expects an answer on Friday morning on whether it is possible to avoid a government closure at midnight on Friday that would idle hundreds of thousands of workers and potentially put a crimp on the US economic recovery.He met for an hour with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and the top Republican in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner at the White House. It was their fourth meeting in three days.“We made some progress today. Those differences have been narrowed. So once again the staff is going to be working tonight, around the clock, in order to see if we can finally close a deal. But there are still a few issues that are outstanding. They are difficult issues. They are important to both sides. And so, Im not yet prepared to express wild optimism. But I think we are further along today than we were yesterday,” Obama told reporters after the nighttime meeting, the second night in a row he has made an evening foray into the White House briefing room to talk about the difficult search for a budget deal.Neither side seemed willing as yet to make the final compromise necessary for an agreement. Democrats blamed the impasse on a Republican push for policy provisions that would block public funding of abortion and stymie environmental protection efforts.But Boehner said the divisions did not stop there. Their deadline to avoid a shutdown: Midnight on Friday night. Some cable television news broadcasts included a shutdown clock ticking the time down.