Reaching no quick fixes, President Barack Obama and Republican leaders in Congress vowed on Tuesday to seek a compromise on their sharply different views about tax cuts before year's end.

"The American people did not vote for gridlock," Obama said following the session. "They did not vote for unyielding partisanship. They're demanding cooperation and they're demanding progress and they'll hold all of us, and I mean all of us, accountable."

The meeting was the first since the Nov. 2 elections weakened the Democrats' hold on government, shifting control of the House to the GOP and narrowing the Democratic majority in the Senate. Obama conceded he had not reached out enough to Republicans in the past and promised to consult with them more frequently, GOP lawmakers said.

At one point the president and the lawmakers took the unusual step of leaving their aides behind and retreating the president's private dining room for a more intimate 35 minutes of discussion.

There was no consensus on whether to keep Bush-era tax cuts in place for the middle class and wealthy alike. But the eight bipartisan congressional leaders and the president agreed to break through their differences by appointing a working group to negotiate a tax cut agreement.

The president appointed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Budget Director Jacob Lew to the group while party leaders will appoint their own representatives. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said those negotiations might start later in the day.