ABOUT:
Defense policy analysis, commentary and discussion.
Coming to the Hill and chiding Congress for its inaction may be one of President Barack Obama’s favorite pastimes — it helped him win re-election in 2012 — and the first State of the Union of his second term did not deviate from his well-established norm.
With significant hurdles ahead for Obama’s legislative wish list — including more money for the nation’s infrastructure, an expansion of pre-kindergarten programs and raising the minimum wage to $9 — the president yet again prodded lawmakers to get over their partisanship, particularly on the fiscal issues that have driven them time and again to the brink of a government shutdown.
“The greatest nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next. We can’t do it,” Obama told lawmakers Tuesday. “Let’s agree, right here, right now, to keep the people’s government open, pay our bills on time and always uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America. The American people have worked too hard, for too long, rebuilding from one crisis to see their elected officials cause another.”
Those lecture-like comments drew only small pockets of applause — a sign of why Obama’s relationship with Congress, particularly Republicans, remains strained.
And though he’s taking his agenda on the road this week to North Carolina, Georgia and Illinois, it’s unclear how much public pressure the president will be able to rouse. The campaign-style push is already angering Republicans, and he’s certainly not winning back friends on the Hill, where egos bruise easily and memories are long.
“Actually, being negative toward the Congress is even more of a consistent move for the president than pivoting the eighth time to jobs,” Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of the GOP leadership team, quipped Tuesday afternoon before Obama’s speech.
Indeed, the president’s penchant for looking down his nose at Congress has become so pervasive and routine that it barely registers as a compelling theme to Republican staffers preparing their bosses to take a beating from Obama on national television. The GOP has seen this movie before, the thinking goes.
One senior Senate Republican aide said: “He’s just another person who doesn’t like Congress — it doesn’t make him anything special, it makes him an American citizen.”
Many sources on both sides of the aisle are resigned to the idea that one person who does still like Congress — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a longtime creature of body — will be their chief point of contact in the administration. He is the clean-up guy who will have to deal with the tough issues on the ground after the presidential sermon is over.
Want Roll Call on your doorstep?
SIGN UPAlready a subscriber?
Sign up to have the print PDF emailed to you.
Roll Call has launched a new feature, Hill Navigator, to advise congressional staffers and would-be staffers on how to manage workplace issues on Capitol Hill. Please send us your questions — anything from office etiquette, to handling awkward moments, to what happens when the work life gets too personal. Submissions will be treated anonymously.
