Though there are bipartisan glimmers of hope on the horizon, the ornery new coalition of Tea Party freshman may make it tough for the Republican majority in Congress to achieve its goals, according to a discussion on the national economy this morning in Boston.

The panel discussion was sponsored by O’Neill and Assoc., and focused on the impact of the new Congress on the economy. Rick Klein, ABC News Senior Washington Editor for "World News with Diane Sawyer," and John H. Sununu, former Governor of New Hampshire and Chief of Staff for George H.W. Bush, were the panelists.

The political realities and the upcoming 2012 election have inspired the president to move toward the center of late.

"I think there is a real effort by the White House to find regulations that are at cross purposes with business development and a very real effort by Republicans to highlight those and try and get them rescinded and repealed," Klein said. A high unemployment rate and the economic threat posed by China mean both parties are focused on job development.

Sununu agreed that the president’s promise to lower the corporate tax rate, if carried forth, would also be an important help.

"The business community in my opinion has made a horrible mistake by claiming that it is low wages which is sending investment out of this country," Sununu said, pointing to a number of industries now largely based abroad where labor costs are not a significant part of overall expenditures

For a time, Republicans may find it tougher to tackle problems, even with broad bipartisan consensus, because many Tea Party legislators in their ranks "are not inclined to help the president’s agenda in any way," said Klein, and have already proved willing to buck party leadership.

Some important goal may be considerably more difficult to achieve, the panel agreed. Even though one of the first bills passed by the new Republican majority was an attempt to repeal the Obama health care bill, Klien said, that "effort goes nowhere" for the next two years, as long as Obama remains president.

But given that a number of the health care bill’s provisions don’t kick in until 2014 or 2016, if a Republican president is elected in 2012 it would then be possible to dismantle many portions of the law, he suggested.