The Washington Post reports a group of 20 CEOs met with President Obama yesterday to discuss exports and the budget deficit, among other things:

President Obama and businesses leaders pledged to work together to repair both the economy and their sometimes strained relationship in a nearly five-hour meeting Wednesday, continuing the president's post-election moves to ease tensions with groups that his administration has clashed with in its first two years.

In a session with 20 chief executives, including the heads of Google, General Electric and American Express, Obama - whose sharp rhetoric about pay on Wall Street has annoyed some executives - declared, "I want to dispel any notion we want to inhibit your success," according to a source in the room.

Obama's tone in the closed-door session, which covered trade, jobs and education, was similar to that of a meeting two weeks ago with congressional Republicans, during which the president promised to work closely with his political adversaries after Democrats were badly defeated in the November elections. Like the GOP, much of corporate America strongly opposed the financial-regulatory and health-care bills that dominated Obama's first two years, and businesses groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent millions of dollars supporting Republican congressional candidates ...

"By overwhelmingly supporting the bipartisan tax bill, the Senate sent an unmistakable message to the House today," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the U.S. Chamber. "The House must swiftly pass this critical legislation, in its current form, to place the economy on a road to recovery. Failure to act could plunge the nation back into a recession and put even more Americans out of work."

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