WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met Sunday at the White House to discuss the ongoing negotiations over the impending fiscal cliff, the first meeting between just the two leaders since they both won re-election. 

Spokesmen for both Obama and Boehner said they agreed to not release details of the conversation, but emphasized that the lines of communication remain open. 

The meeting comes as the White House and Congress try to break an impasse over finding a way to stop a combination of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to kick in at the beginning of next year. 

Obama met in November with Boehner, as well as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The president spoke by telephone with Reid and in person with Pelosi on Friday. The president is traveling to Redford, Mich., on Monday to promote his agenda in a speech to workers at an engine factory; auto workers helped Obama win Michigan in last month's election. 

As cliff looms, both sides position on entitlements

Obama has been pushing higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans as one way to reduce the deficit -- a position Boehner and other House Republicans have been steadfastly against. Republicans are demanding steeper cuts in costly government entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. 

One GOP senator said Sunday that Senate Republicans would probably agree to higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans if it meant getting a chance to overhaul entitlement programs. 

The comments by Bob Corker of Tennessee -- a fiscal conservative who has been gaining stature in the Senate as a pragmatic deal broker -- puts new pressure on Boehner and other Republican leaders to rethink their long-held assertion that even the very rich shouldn't see their rates go up next year. GOP leaders have argued that the revenue gained by hiking the top two tax rates would be trivial to the deficit, and that any tax hike hurts job creation. 

But Corker said insisting on that red line — especially since Obama won re-election after campaigning on raising tax rates on the wealthy --- might not be wise. 

"There is a growing group of folks looking at this and realizing that we don't have a lot of cards as it relates to the tax issue before year end," Corker told "Fox News Sunday." 

If Republicans agree to Obama's plan to increase rates on the top 2 percent of Americans, Corker added, "the focus then shifts to entitlements and maybe it puts us in a place where we actually can do something that really saves the nation." 

Senate filibuster challenged in court

Besides getting tax hikes through the Republican-dominated House, Corker's proposal faces another hurdle: Democrats haven't been receptive to GOP proposals on the entitlement programs. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Sunday was skeptical about proposals to increase the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67. He said he doesn't see Congress addressing the complicated issue of Medicare overhaul in the three weeks remaining before the end of the year. 

"I just don't think we can do it in a matter of days here before the end of the year," Durbin said. "We need to address that in a thoughtful way through the committee structure after the first of the year." 

And hard-line fiscal conservatives in the House are holding fast to their position. 

"No Republican wants to vote for a rate tax increase," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Republican Conference. 

Added Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.: "I'm not sure there is support for the rate hikes. There is support for revenue by cleaning up the code." 

Still, at least one House Republican has said there is another way. Rep. Tom Cole, of Oklahoma, has said Obama and Boehner should agree not to raise tax rates on the majority of Americans and negotiate the rates for top earners later. Cole said Sunday that most House Republicans would vote for that approach because it doesn't include a rate hike. 

"You know, it's not waving a white flag to recognize political reality," Cole said. 

ABOARD THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN PLANE-- Mitt Romney said Friday following a conversation with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that he was hopeful that the U.S. wouldn't have to use military force to halt Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons.

The Republican presidential nominee told reporters traveling with him that he thought a peaceful resolution in Iran was still within reach, though Romney cautioned that it was important to leave open the option to use military force.

"I do not believe that in the final analysis we will have to use military action," Romney told reporters traveling with him from Philadelphia to Boston. " I certainly hope we don’t have to."

The GOP presidential nominee, who has long advocated the U.S. taking a tougher stand against the Iranian regime, said despite his optimism it would be important in future negotiations with Iran to keep a military option on the table.

"It must be something which is known by the Iranians as a possible tool to be employed to prevent them from becoming nuclear," Romney said of a possible use of military force. "But I certainly hope that we can prevent any military action from having to be taken."

The remarks came roughly one hour after Romney concluded his telephone conversation with the Israeli prime minister, who delivered an address to the United Nations yesterday in which he advocated for the drawing of a bright "red line" with Iran's leadership - offering a clear point of no return which would trigger Western military action and hopefully dissuade the regime from further pursuing its nuclear program.

Netanyahu also spoke by phone with President Barack Obama earlier today, and Romney was asked to draw a distinction between his views on Iran and those of the president. Romney said the administration's policies have moved more to mirror with his own views over time, pointing to newer, more aggressive sanctions placed on the Iranian regime as evidence, and saying he would continue to see how well Obama would match his rhetoric to his actions.

"His words more recently are more consistent with the words that I’ve been speaking for some time," Romney said. "And we’ll see what actions he pursues."