Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is turning to an unlikely ally — President Clinton’s former chief of staff — to try to get the White House to put big entitlement changes in a fiscal-cliff deal.

Erskine Bowles, the former co-chairman of Obama’s debt commission, will meet on Wednesday with Boehner and other top Republicans. The GOP is using the occasion to call out liberal Democrats for working against benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security…

“Any time he can emphasize to them that we said revenues need to be on the table, they need to say entitlements need to be on the table, certainly that would help the progress,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight deficit discussion group and a close friend of Boehner.