The President vs. The Republicans; Hardball In Baltimore

Many were impressed with the almost parliamentary proceedings of Obama's meeting with the GOP today. The President was very open to questions from all those present and responded cordially. Jokes were made, and niceties were exchanged. Obama lead off with the idea "keep your friends close, but visit the Republican caucus every few months." Though it gained the president a few laughs, this "visit" is what many have been anticipating would have to happen in order to bring about progress. It is true however, that the political game was played. Obama stated that his goal was to have a "real conversation" but that is certainly not what transpired.

After a nineteen minute introductory speech that talked of the commonalities between the two major parties, the floor was opened up for questions. The Republicans pledged to keep the door of conversation open, and then hardball began. The first question from Congressman Pence of Indiana asked the President is whether he would be “willing to consider embracing... the kind of across-the-board tax relief that Republicans have advocated [for years].” Obama was quick to say that “had it not been for the stimulus package that we passed, things would be much worse.” He went on to say that, though the stimulus did not help all 7 million people who were unemployed at the time, it likely helped 2 million of that group, leaving another 5 million people to take care of. Also, Obama restated the fact that one third of the stimulus is tax-cuts. Obama was not afraid to attack though; saying he could not “find a credible economist who would back up [the Congressman’s claim]” that the Republican stimulus would have saved more jobs overall. In the end, Obama resolved to consider the Republicans' position but refused to concede any of the Congressman’s points.

Next, Congressman Ryan of Wisconsin, a ranking member of the budget committee asked why the president is not freezing spending now. The president reacted strongly, saying that the budget spending was in great part due to the programs put into effect by past administrations. He then went on to say that freezing spending was not an action laid out by the budget, and he’d been advised to wait a longer time until initiating a spending freeze. Following Ryan, Congresswoman Capito of West Virginia asked the president to review policies that prevented her states miners and gas workers from harvesting the resources found in her state. Obama avoided confrontation, spilling out an answer that boiled down to “We've got to be thinking, what does [the energy] industry look like in the next hundred years?” which, though true, was not quite satisfying.

The star of the show seemed to be Congressman Chafftez of Utah, a freshman representative from one of the ten most conservative districts in the country. He asserted that the president was less than transparent by not broadcasting the healthcare debates, and was unresponsive to requests to go over the entire health care bill, though he offered in the first place. He went on to challenge the president’s lack of fighting against earmarks, and the lobbyists he put into senior positions in the administration. Obama admitted the need for transparency but took no responsibility and glorified the broadcasting of the healthcare debates. In response to the Congressman’s desire to go over the health care bill, Obama said nothing.

The president did respond to the comments both on lobbyists and earmarks, saying that some lobbyists belong in the positions they hold in the administration but will be removed from these positions as soon as their terms end. Earmarks are not always bad, Obama said, they “just... haven't gone through the regular appropriations process in the full light of day." This makes them lose transparency and appear to be putting on pork-barrel spending that is actually beneficial to the people.

After Chafftez’s scalding attacks, Congresswoman Blackburn of Tennessee went in for the kill on healthcare saying “when will we look forward to starting anew and sitting down with you to put all of these ideas on the table, to look at these lessons learned, to benefit from that experience, and to produce a product that is going to reduce government interference, reduce cost and be fair to the American taxpayer?” Obama laughed it off at first, saying he’d received her many ideas, but the people are not finding this funny at all. He came right back with the fact that “at [the current healthcare bill’s] core, if you look at the basic proposal that we put forward, it has an exchange so that businesses and the self-employed can buy into a pool and can get bargaining power the same way big companies do.” He went on to attack back at the party in front of him saying that “I know you [Republicans] disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans... proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.”

Dr. Tom Price, a representative from Georgia, accused the administration of lying, saying “what should we tell our constituents who know that Republicans have offered positive solutions to the challenges that Americans face and yet continue to hear out of the administration that we've offered nothing?” Obama was quite offended at this, and eventually said that he understood exactly what the Republicans were proposing. “[He] actually read [their] bills.” When Congressman Pence got involved he responded that “It can't be all-or-nothing one way or the other, all right?”

Peter Roskam, a representative from Obama’s own state of Illinois was quick to say that “the obstacle is, frankly, the politics within the Democratic Caucus.” Obama shot back with sarcasm: “In the Republican primary, of course, they're running ads of him saying nice things about me.” After the laughter settled, Obama stated that “on the specifics, I think both sides can take some blame for a sour climate on Capitol Hill. What I can do maybe to help is to try to bring Republican and Democratic leadership together on a more regular basis with me.” Many hope he will fulfill this promise.

Finally, Jeb Hensarling of Texas went back to the budget question, asking “Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy?” Obama responded tersely that “The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. $1.3 trillion. So - so when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly budget that is higher than the annual - or a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true.”

In the end, when the President was asked to take one last question, he refused, having gone over time, but promised to take any other questions off-line. Fireballs were thrown in both directions and both parties firmly stood their ground. Many questions did not get asked or answered, and many answers became very legalistic. Frankly, I’m through with caring about the facts and figures. I’ll see who to believe when I see results.