The Hill News

President Obama will huddle with a group of 14 Democratic governors on Friday as the heated debate over federal and state budgets continues.

The White House announced Thursday that Obama and the governors will "discuss the ways Washington and the states can work together to grow the economy and create jobs." The group will speak to the press afterward. 

{mosads}White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that states, "need to act responsibly, just as we in Washington ... need to do with our federal situation.

"But again, [the president] believes very strongly that in order to achieve that, people need to come together, reach a solution, share the sacrifice," he said.

The meeting allows the White House to run counter-programming against Republicans, who have basked in the budget fights in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.

Most prominently in Wisconsin, Republican governors have sparred with public emp! loyees over pension and healthcare benefits. Proposed legislation in Wisconsin would force public employees to pay for some of their benefits and limit their collective bargaining rights. 

Massive union protests have broken out in those states, and Obama fired up labor groups, which are crucial to his reelection, by calling the Wisconsin plan an "assault on unions."

"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama told the Milwaukee television affiliate WTMJ last week. "And I think it's very important for us to understand tha! t public employees â€" they're our neighbors, they're our frie! nds."

Vice President Joe Biden also defended public-sector unions, which have become a scourge of Republicans, at a fundraiser Thursday. 

"Public employees are not the problem. The problem is much deeper," Biden said, "We are going to see the economic conditions they created used as an excuse to fundamentally go after the social agenda that the far right has been trying to accomplish for a long time."

Below is a list of governors scheduled to attend the meeting:

Gov. Steve Beshear (Ky.)

Gov. Mark Dayton (Minn.)

Gov. Chris Gregoire (Wash.)

Gov. John Hickenlooper (Colo.)

G! ov. Dan Malloy (Conn.)

Gov. Jack Markell (Del.)

Gov. Jay Nixon (Mo.)

Gov. Martin O’Malley (Md.)

Gov. Deval Patrick (Mass.)

Gov. Bev Perdue (N.C.)

Gov. Pat Quinn (Ill.)

Gov. Brian Schweitzer (Mont.)

Gov. Peter Shumlin (Vt.)

Gov. Togiola Tulafono (American Samoa)