US PRESIDENT Barack Obama extended an olive branch to Republican leaders yesterday in the wake of their midterm election victory. But Mitch McConnell, the highest ranking Republican Senator, virtually bit the president’s extended hand an hour and a half later, in a speech to a conservative think tank.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting in the White House, Mr Obama said voters had sent the message that “they want us to focus on the economy” and signalled their opposition “to scoring political points”. The president said he would “make a sincere and consistent effort to try to change how Washington works”.
He would strive to create “a better working relationship between this White House and the congressional leadership that’s coming in”. To this end, he had invited John Boehner, the Republican speaker-elect, and Mr McConnell to the White House with their Democratic counterparts on November 18th.
“Hopefully, it may spill over into dinner,” the president added. He has also invited newly elected governors, a majority of whom are Republicans, to the White House on December 2nd.
“We will stop the liberal onslaught,” Mr McConnell responded in a speech at the right-wing Heritage Foundation.
For two years, the thing that has worried Americans most, he said, was “that what some have called the Europeanisation of America would continue unchecked”.
If the White House does not “change course . . . we will have more disagreements ahead”.
The Senate minority leader stood by an earlier, controversial statement. “Some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office,” Mr McConnell said. “But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending Bill; to end the bailouts, cut spending and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things.”
The battle lines for the “lame duck” session, which will run from mid-November until the new Congress convenes in January, are drawn. Mr Obama said it was crucial to extend tax cuts for middle-class families. The extension of the “Bush tax cuts” was postponed until the lame duck session because Republicans opposed Mr Obama’s plan to end $700 billion in tax cuts for the richest 2 per cent of the population.
“Immediately before us, before the end of the year, is a very serious question about whether we’re going to prevent a tax increase on anybody or anything at the first of the year,” Mr McConnell said in a question-and-answer session after his speech. “That needs to be resolved first.”
He disputed Mr Obama’s description of “a tax increase on the rich”, saying that the Democrats’ proposal “would affect 750,000 small businesses in this country who pay taxes as individuals, not as corporations”. The Republicans’ main idea for creating private sector jobs seems to be less regulation and less taxation. “What we’ll do is come together during the lame duck and agree to extend the current tax policy for everyone,” Mr McConnell predicted.
Mr Obama also said the lame duck session should extend unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless, which expires at the end of November. When the Senate dithered on the extension for nearly two months last summer, 2.5 million people who have been unemployed for more than six months missed cheques. In Indiana, armed guards are stationed at three dozen WorkOne centres because of the feared reaction of those who may lose benefits.
On foreign policy, Mr Obama said he wants the Senate to ratify the Start treaty on reducing the US and Russian nuclear arsenals during the session. Mr McConnell said Republicans agree with the president’s strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Where I think we have some problem is with the whole issue of American exceptionalism; whether America is an exceptional country and whether it’s a good idea to go abroad and kind of suggest we’ve been wrong on . . . different things.”
Mr Boehner has called healthcare reform “a monstrosity”. Mr McConnell called it “the worst piece of legislation that’s passed in my time in the Senate”. The Dodd-Frank financial reform Bill was, he said, “somewhere close to that”.