Hoooraaaa.......gridlock

[sirs]

Election doesn't end major discord for GOP, Obama

Barely an hour after President Barack Obama invited congressional Republicans to post-election talks to work together on major issues, the Senate's GOP leader had a blunt message: His party's main goal is denying Obama re-election.

In a sign that combat and the 2012 elections rather than compromise could mark the next two years, Sen. Mitch McConnell on Thursday called for Senate votes to repeal or erode Obama's signature health care law, to cut spending and to shrink government.

"The only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things," McConnell said in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The Senate Republican leader's confrontational tone was in sharp contrast to the posture Obama took Wednesday in the face of a new GOP-controlled House and Republican gains in the Senate. Obama followed up Thursday morning by inviting Republican and Democratic congressional leaders for talks on Nov. 18 and challenging his own Cabinet to make Washington work better.

"I want us to talk substantively about how we can move the American people's agenda forward," Obama said of the upcoming meeting with lawmakers. "It's not just going to be a photo op."

(translated: "American People's Agenda" = Obama's hard core socialist agenda)

The meeting in two weeks will be watched for any indication of compromise between Obama and Congress' Republican leaders, House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner and McConnell. They will be joined by the top Democrats in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Obama said Thursday, "It's clear that the voters sent a message, which is that they want us to focus on the economy and jobs."

Still, there are major differences between the two parties, including the GOP emphasis on tax-cutting, and Obama made that clear on Wednesday.

"From 2001 to 2009, we cut taxes pretty significantly," Obama said, "and we just didn't see the kind of expansion that is going to be necessary" to create jobs.

(actually, WE DID.  Unemployment were at record lows compared to the policies that have brought about the current #'s)

Obama and, to some degree, Republican leaders did signal they might reach accords on a few issues, such as energy. Obama has abandoned his proposed cap-and-trade system for trying to reduce greenhouse gases, which Republicans sharply opposed. But he said the two parties might reach compromises on other fronts, such as promoting electric cars, nuclear power, energy efficiency and "energy independence."

But McConnell on Thursday indicated that the road to agreements is more like a one-way street.

"If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction," McConnell said.

And he spelled out a strategy for undermining Obama's health care law, calling for repeated votes to repeal the measure.

"But we can't expect the president to sign it," he said. "So we'll also have to work, in the House, on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions."

Obama said there should be bipartisan agreement on a plan to give businesses a tax break by letting them accelerate the depreciation of some equipment.

But those are relatively minor issues in the federal universe. The array of Republican and Democratic postelection news conferences Wednesday gave virtually no hint about how Obama and the next Congress might tackle major issues such as immigration or Medicare's long-term viability.

Leaders in both parties talked about cutting spending. But there was barely a word about cutting big programs that consume so much of the federal budget, such as Social Security, Medicare and the military.

Obama hinted that he might be willing to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans for a year or two but not make them permanent, as Republicans have advocated.

Republicans, meanwhile, spoke of working with Democrats only in vague terms. Mostly, they seemed defiant.

McConnell was unapologetic for the unified resistance of the Republican Party to Obama initiatives over the past two years.

"By sticking together in principled opposition to policies we viewed as harmful, we made it perfectly clear to the American people where we stood," he said. "And we gave voters a real choice on Election Day."

He also vowed to continue to keep the administration in check by using congressional hearings to oversee executive branch actions.

"Through oversight we'll also keep a spotlight on the various agencies the administration will now use to advance through regulation what it can't through legislation," he said.

Reid, D-Nev., said that in light of the election, "Republicans must take the responsibility to solve the problems of ordinary Americans," although he added, "people expect us to work together."

Big clashes seem inevitable.

On the health care law, Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters, "We have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with commonsense reforms that'll bring down the cost of health insurance."

Obama, whose veto powers would seem to make repeal impossible, defended the law's main provisions at length.

"When I talk to a woman from New Hampshire who doesn't have to mortgage her house because she got cancer and is seeking treatment, but now is able to get health insurance; when I talk to parents who are relieved that their child with a preexisting condition can now stay on their policy" until age 26, "or the small businesses that are now taking advantage of the tax credits that are provided, then I say to myself, this was the right thing to do," Obama said.

He also rejected claims that he spent too much money to stimulate the economy, bail out banks and shore up automakers at the recession's height. Republicans hammered all those programs in the elections.

"We've stabilized the economy," Obama said. "We've got job growth in the private sectors. But people all across America aren't feeling that progress. They don't see it."


Why would anyone want to compromise on policies that brought us such misery?  You pull those policies, not fluff and fold them to try and make them more tolerable

[sirs]

Obama Doesn't Seek Compromise; Neither Should We

I take no great pleasure in having been correct in predicting Barack Obama's reaction to his Tuesday "shellacking." To borrow his terminology, he is wired not to hear the American people's opposition to his radical agenda, as painfully demonstrated in his postelection news conference.

Unhappily, Obama's answers showed even deeper intransigence than I had thought he would be willing to reveal. He is every bit as committed to his destructive agenda as he was Nov. 1 and, despite his claims, is not looking for "common ground."

He said that every election "is a reminder that in our democracy, power rests not with those of us in elected office, but with the people we have the privilege to serve." But if anyone needs to be reminded of that, it is he, because he crammed through Obamacare and other offensive agenda items against the express will of the people.

As it happened, power rested with him, not the people. He saw to that by breaking all the rules to push the measures through. And when asked whether he has any regrets about doing so, he said no. He regrets the process wasn't "healthier," but "the outcome was a good one." Translation: "Though I just said power resides with the people, I didn't mean it, as you can see by my cynical absence of contrition at having usurped their power on this bill." Again, the end justifies the means, and the people don't know what's good for them.

Moreover, he emphatically refuses to consider repealing Obamacare, saying "we'd be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years re-litigate arguments that we had over the last two years." Sorry, but there was no litigation in the first place, just a kangaroo court where he imposed his will on us like a tyrannical judge. But he's correct that we don't want to argue anymore about it. We want it repealed -- yesterday!

He said, "The most important contest we face is not the contest between Democrats and Republicans ... (but) between America and our economic competitors around the world." Assuming, for purposes of argument, that our greatest challenge is with foreign economic competitors, we'll never improve our competitive position as long as Obama insists on bankrupting the nation with policies that also depress our economic growth. In that sense, the contest is between Democrats and Republicans.

Throughout the conference, Obama kept reiterating his tired lament that we need to build consensus and work together to achieve "civility." That's "the overwhelming message" he heard from the voters. And he promises to alleviate their concerns by proving there are pressing areas on which the parties can agree, such as electric cars. Boy, that's a relief.

His interpretation of the voters' message strikes me as odd. The overwhelming message I heard was that people are scared to death of this mounting debt and the socialization of health care and other sectors of the economy.

Especially coming from this intransigent "superjumbo Democrat," this constant talk about consensus is very hard to take, particularly when he cites areas such as "transparency," a promise he campaigned on and serially obliterated. Consensus is way overrated in the first place, but it's patently ridiculous for him to pretend he even aspires to it. It's his policies that people are most horrified by, not the lack of smooching across the partisan aisle.

Indeed, Obama outright rejects the idea that voters repudiated his agenda. Read the transcript if you doubt that. Just as he's been saying for a year or more, Americans are simply frustrated that economic recovery isn't occurring more quickly. But it is occurring, mind you, just not fast enough for the ignorant, impatient electorate.

He is convinced beyond the slightest reflection that his pump priming with borrowed money from the private sector is the only thing that saved us from a depression; never mind that the unemployment rate persists much higher than he promised. So we mustn't bother him further with our silly concerns about the mounting debt, because he saved us from an "emergency." As nothing will ever disabuse him of that myth, it's pointless for us even to approach him about compromising on his major economic policies.

When we have a president who believes that the government, not the private sector, creates jobs and who believes that extending unemployment benefits ad infinitum is not only the compassionate thing to do but also the healthiest thing for the economy, where can you begin?

I'll tell you where you don't begin: in the quixotic pursuit of a consensus that he has no intention of achieving. Neither should we have such an intention. This is a war of ideas, and we must suit up for battle.


You'll always note, when Dems are in charge, its their way or the highway.  Move to the back of the bus.  When it's the GOP, we must "compromise", work together, and push forward the agenda of the socialist left...I mean, American people