Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are leaving Washington to take a long weekend and won't return to the Capitol until Tuesday according to the Republican leaders of the House.

With just over three weeks until automatic spending cuts totaling some $600 billion are scheduled to take place if an agreement is not reached, and with the Republic-led House already suffering from an approval rating of just 15%, the departure from the Capitol by the House members will not gain any points from the public.

When asked why the House was leaving for an extended weekend holiday while so much is needed to be done, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said in reply that he wants President Obama to contact him for more negotiations. “I’ll be here, and I will be available at any moment to sit down with the president to get serious about solving this problem,” he said.

Boehner said that it is up to the President to make the next move. He said that House Republicans have sent a proposal to the president. “That offer included significant spending cuts and reforms, and it included additional revenue,” said Boehner. “And frankly, it was the balanced approach that the president’s been asking for. Now we need a response from the White House. We can’t sit here and negotiate with ourselves.”

President Obama is asking business leaders around the country to press Republicans to reach a compromise in the deficit reduction talks. He has called on the chief executives of many of the large U.S. corporations to help break the “logjam” that he said was created by House Republicans.

Although the president has pointed out that he is willing to make some tough decisions on spending cuts and look at some long-term reforms in large government entitlement programs, he continues to repeatedly call for tax increases on the top two percent of wage earners. Republicans continue to defend lower taxes for the rich.

President Obama said that he will not tolerate another standoff with Republican lawmakers like the one last year that resulted in a downgrading of the United State’s credit rating when Republicans balked at raising the debt ceiling. “We can probably solve this in about a week,” the president said. “It’s not that tough, but we need that conceptual breakthrough that says we need to do a balanced plan, that is what is best for the economy, that is what the American people voted for, that is how we are going to get it done.”