It’s hard to be disappointed if you don’t expect much.
That about summed up the feelings of a bored group of congressional Republicans as they streamed out of the House chamber Tuesday evening after President Obama’s sixth State of the Union address.
Any hope for major bipartisan initiatives in the new Congress not killed off by Obama’s executive fiat legalizing millions of illegal immigrants within days of the Republican Senate takeover in November was finally buried by a primetime speech to the nation laden with a bugle call for tax hikes and new government programs that have zero chance of being considered on GOP-controlled Capitol Hill.
“I’m not shocked; I saw this movie — ‘Ground Hog Day,’” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina.
“He’s going down this class warfare campaign rhetoric again, which is unfortunate,” added Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio.
But the rocky relationship between Obama and the Republicans, and the president’s unique ability to pique his opposition can be symbolized by a single, ad-lib line: “I know cuz I won both of them.”
Obama was referring to his two presidential election victories. Ironically, Obama inserted the line during the portion of his speech that served as a call to abandon hyper partisanship and vitriol and work together on behalf of the American people. To make his point, the president pointed out that he had run his last campaign, winning re-election in 2012. Some Republicans clapped, and Obama responded with the ad lib line. Most Democrats loved it; Republicans said it was another obstacle to the higher politics and more civil discourse he claims to have long sought to foster.
The moment perfectly encapsulated the six year relationship between Obama and Republicans in Congress.
“I thought at times the tone was a little bit condescending,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, a centrist Republican from Pennsylvania. “On the one hand, at the end of the speech he tried to provide more of a unifying, uplifting theme, while starting the speech off with veto threats and kind of throwing down the gauntlet a few times, which I didn’t think was real helpful. So the speech was full of contradictions.”
To the Republicans’ dismay, the scope of Obama’s ambition has hardly dimmed since the voters rebuked his party in the midterm elections, which saw the GOP win nine Senate seats and grow its existing House majority by a dozen. Republicans still feign optimism that they and the administration might work together on tax reform, infrastructure funding and other items. And, there is genuine expectation that the two sides will get together on free trade agreements and cybersecurity legislation. But on domestic and foreign policy broadly, a combative Obama is mostly ignoring Republican entreaties to meet them in the middle and challenging their constitutional authority with executive action.
The president’s State of the Union underscored his aggressive approach with proposals that are as dead as dead can be in a legislative body controlled by the Republican Party. Obama pitched taxpayer-subsidized community college education, a new program that could cost $8 billion annually, in addition to $320 billion in tax hikes over ten years that would redistribute wealth from high earners and those on the high end of the middle class scale to the poor and lower middle class.
The administration wants to increase capital gains taxes and a college savings program popular with upper middle class savers and hit banks with higher fees in order to subsidize an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, permanently extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit and make the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit more generous.
All of this flies in the face of Republicans’ stated commitment to reduce the size and scope of government by paring the Obama regulatory regime, reducing taxes on individuals and corporations and focusing on free-market policies that generate economic growth broadly.
Though Republicans understand that they’re not going to have much in common with a liberal president, at least inside the governing wing of the GOP — if not the Tea Party contingent — members had initially hope he might soften his tone and prioritize areas where they might work together, rather than highlight their differences. But Obama hasn’t hesitated to vow vetoes for most of the Republican bills that have made their way through the new Congress in its opening weeks, including a bipartisan bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The president grimly repeated his veto threat early in Tuesday night’s speech.
“After he said that his ideas are on the ballot this election and he was completely repudiated, I’d hoped that he would then be more willing to come worth with Congress,” Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said.
Republicans and the president continue to talk a good game about working together to try and get things done. But privately, Republicans say even their private meetings with Obama, though cordial and generally without animosity, are pointless and do nothing to bridge the gaps between them.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a possible Republican candidate for president in 2016, said Obama’s reliance on liberal policies is tired and entirely predictable.
He likened the Tuesday’s State of the Union to the old Saturday Night Live skit, “More Cowbell.” In the skit, Christopher Walken portrays a music producer directing a recording session, whose answer to every concern the band expresses about how the song sounds is to emphasize the cowbell player.
“At times President Obama reminds me of Christopher Walken’s character in the classic Saturday Night Live skit, where, to every problem his solution was: ‘More cowbell; more cowbell,’” Cruz said. “This president, to every problem his solution is: more taxes, more government.”
