With about 24 hours to go before the federal government goes into a shutdown, President Obama said in late-evening remarks that the staffs of the White House, the Senate and the House made progress to avert a shutdown -- but that he is not yet wildly optimistic they'll avoid one.

"And so once again the staff is going to be working tonight around the clock in order to see if we can finally close a deal," Obama said after meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid at the White House.

In a joint statement, Reid and Boehner said, "We have narrowed the issues; however, we have not yet reached an agreement. We will continue to work through the night to attempt to resolve our remaining differences."

Just moments after Obama spoke, Office of Management and Budget director Jacob Lew issued a 16-page memorandum that addressed preparations for the federal agencies in the event of a lapse in federal funding, should that start late tonight.

Nevertheless, the president took the opportunity in his remarks to highlight the consequences associated with a shutdown, including a hasty, dramatic blow to the economy.

Obama pointed out that the most recent jobs report was the best the country has seen in many months but that the impact of a shutdown "could end up severely hampering our recovery and our ability to put people back to work."

And, he said, "You then have millions more people who end up being impacted because they're not getting the services from the federal government that are important to them. So small businesses aren't seeing their loans processed. Folks who want to get a mortgage through the FHA may not be able to get it, and obviously that's not good as weak as this housing market is."

While he said that he expects to announce movement on the matter early in the day today, he altered his travel plans to account for the uncertainty: He will stay in the Beltway to continue meetings to hammer out the budgetary differences with congressional leaders.

The White House scrapped a trip Obama was scheduled to take to Indianapolis to tour Allison Transmission. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican eyeing a presidential run against Obama next year, said he would greet Obama on the tarmac when the president arrived in the Hoosier State. The White House said the trip, which was designed to highlight Allison for its development of hybrid energy technology, would be rescheduled.

Plans for another trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, are still up in the air.