President Barack Obama has a resolution for the New Year and the
Republican-controlled Congress convening next week in Washington:
Cooperate more and use executive actions less.
Obama has already used some quite extensive executive actions,
including a decree on immigration reform, reports
The Wall Street Journal, but he still has some
top agenda items left to achieve during his last two years in
office.
Some senior administration officials say that those priorities might
stand a better chance of happening without Democrats in charge of
the Senate.
But the six years since Obama first took office have been
contentious ones, and while Republican leaders say they want to work
with the president, aides told The Journal that the leaders don't
believe he'll compromise with them.
Even if the two sides can work out agreements, GOP lawmakers are
skeptical that Obama will deliver enough votes from his party to get
the bills passed.
"If he’s going to run around the country talking about things that
have no chance of passing rather than running around the country
focusing on the areas where we agree, he’s not going to be very
productive," Don Stewart, deputy chief of staff to incoming Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said. "We just had an
election on his policies."
Obama and McConnell discussed several areas of compromise during a
meeting after the November midterm elections, and the president
plans to leave room for negotiations by only drawing lines when it
comes to major issues, including rollbacks to Obamacare or
immigration, The Journal reports.
But Republicans plan to bring up several key issues right away,
including the long-awaited approval for the Keystone XL pipeline,
which Obama is expected to reject. In recent weeks, he has argued
that the structure will pose environmental and economic risks.
"It's very good for Canadian oil companies, and it's good for the
Canadian oil industry, but it's not going to be a huge benefit to
U.S. consumers,"
Obama said last month.
Rejecting the pipeline will likely create a huge political fight,
though, at a time when the president is looking for some cooperation
from Congress.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said there are bound to be areas
in which the White House and Congress won't be cooperating. Still,
"those disagreements should not interfere with the many areas of
bipartisan interest where we can work together to get things done
for the American people," he said.
There are several areas where Obama and the GOP might come to a
compromise, White House officials said, including a long-sought
corporate tax code overhaul, infrastructure funding, and trade
pacts.
But even with plans to cooperate, Obama is facing a Congress that
will likely continue to push back against him on several items, such
as his executive action on immigration.
Further, the president is trying to win confirmation for his
nominees for defense secretary and attorney general at the same time
Senate Republicans plan investigations into the Internal Revenue
Service, the Dodd-Frank Law, and other agencies and policies.
The White House will need bipartisan proposals and support to
succeed with tax legislation, as well as a coalition of Republicans
to help pass trade legislation that some more liberal lawmakers are
against.
Obama also expects to
use his veto pen more this year than he has
previously in his presidency when negotiations fail.
"I haven't used the veto pen very often since I've been in office,"
Obama said in an NPR interview last week. "Now, I suspect, there are
going to be some times where I've got to pull that pen out."
He's also expected to push a more economic-driven agenda this year,
sources said, and to emphasize the successes that have come so far.
But most Americans are skeptical that the president and Congress
will cooperate this year at all. According to an
Associated Press-GIK poll last month, only 13
percent of believe the leaders of the two parties will work
together, and 86 percent doubt it's possible.
And the doubts cross party lines, with fewer than 1 in 5 Democrats
and independents, and just 1 in 10 Republicans, convinced that Obama
and Congress can break the gridlock in the nation's capital.
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