Obama & GOP in rare face-to-face..

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Obama & GOP in rare face-to-face..
11
Sun, 01-31-2010 - 11:22am
Did you watch this important never before interaction?
How well did you think the President held his own?

Will this face-to-face lead to better co-operation? Or has the well been so poisoned that no co-operation is possible?


Obama and GOP in rare face-to-face encounter
Republicans question president on politics and policy

Videos at link...........


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35146450/ns/politics-white_house/


BALTIMORE - In a remarkably sharp face-to-face confrontation, President Barack Obama chastised Republican lawmakers Friday for opposing him on taxes, health care and the economic stimulus, while they accused him in turn of brushing off their ideas and driving up the national debt.


The president and GOP House members took turns questioning and sometimes lecturing each other for more than hour at a Republican gathering in Baltimore. The Republicans agreed to let TV cameras inside, resulting in an extended, point-by-point interchange that was almost unprecedented in U.S. politics, except perhaps during presidential debates.


With voters angry about partisanship and legislative logjams, both sides were eager to demonstrate they were ready to cooperate, resulting in the GOP invitation and Obama's acceptance. After polite introductions, however, Friday's exchange showed that Obama and the Republicans remain far apart on key issues, and neither side could resist the chance to challenge and even scold the other.


Obama said Republican lawmakers have attacked his health care overhaul so fiercely, "you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot." His proposals are mainstream, widely supported ideas, he said, and they deserve some GOP votes in Congress.


"I am not an ideologue," the president declared.


But Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., pointedly asked Obama: "What should we tell our constituents who know that Republicans have offered positive solutions" for health care, "and yet continue to hear out of the administration that we've offered nothing?"


Obama showed little sympathy, disputing Price's claim that a Republican plan would insure nearly all Americans without raising taxes.


"That's just not true," said Obama. He called such claims "boilerplate" meant to score political points.


At times it seemed more like Britain's "question time" — when lawmakers in the House of Commons trade barbs with the prime minister — than a meeting between a U.S. president and members of Congress.


Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana defended Price on the health care proposals. He said a GOP agenda booklet given to Obama at the start of the session "is backed up by precisely the kind of detailed legislation that Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and your administration have been busy ignoring for 12 months."


Obama shot back that he had read the Republican proposals and that they promise solutions that can't be realized.


In another barbed exchange, the president said some Republican lawmakers in the audience had attended ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects in their districts funded by the 2009 stimulus package that they voted against.








Pence said Obama was trying to defend "a so-called stimulus that was a piecemeal list of projects and boutique tax cuts."


Obama replied, "When you say they were boutique tax cuts, Mike, 95 percent of working Americans got tax cuts."


"This notion that this was a radical package is just not true," he said.


Republicans are feeling energized after winning a Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts, and Obama is trying to refocus his stalled agenda more on jobs than health care. With Obama at a podium facing a hotel conference room full of Republicans, both sides jumped to the debate.


"It was the kind of discussion that we frankly need to have more of," said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.


"I'm having fun, this is great," Obama said when Pence asked if he had time for more questions.


"So are we," said Pence.


Some Republicans prefaced their questions with lengthy recitations of conservative talking points. The president sometimes listened impassively but sometimes broke in.





"I know there's a question in there somewhere, because you're making a whole bunch of assertions, half of which I disagree with," Obama said to Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, whom he mistakenly called "Jim."








Obama, a former law school professor, launched into lectures of his own at times. He warned lawmakers from both parties against demonizing a political opponent, because voters might find it incomprehensible if the two sides ever agree on anything.


"We've got to be careful about what we say about each other sometimes, because it boxes us in in ways that makes it difficult for us to work together because our constituents start believing us," Obama said. "So just a tone of civility instead of slash-and-burn would be helpful."


Republicans sat attentively for the most part. There was some grumbling when Obama remarked — after being pressed about closed-door health care negotiations — that much of the legislation was developed in congressional committees in front of television cameras.


"That was a messy process," Obama said.


GOP lawmakers pressured him to support a presidential line-item veto for spending bills and to endorse across-the-board tax cuts. Obama said he was ready to talk about the budget proposal, though he disputed accusations that his administration was to blame for big increases in deficit spending. And he demurred on the idea of cutting everyone's taxes, saying with a smile that billionaires don't need tax cuts.


In his opening remarks, Obama criticized what he said was a Washington culture driven by opinion polls and nonstop political campaigns.




"I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security, they want us to focus on their job security," he said.


The president acknowledged that Republicans have joined Democrats in some efforts, such as sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. But he said he was disappointed and perplexed by virtually unanimous GOP opposition to other programs, such as the economic stimulus bill.


Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said of the event, "In some places I kind of felt like I was in my high school assembly being lectured by my principal. In others, I felt like he was listening."

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2007
Tue, 02-02-2010 - 2:18pm

I watched every minute and LOVED it. Obama really clarified a lot of lies that the GOP

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 02-02-2010 - 2:42pm

I really enjoyed the 'question' & answer session. Obama has my admiration facing, for the most part, a crowd that wanted to grandstand rather than seek replies. He is so intelligent. The woman from Tennessee, for instance, was

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2007
Tue, 02-02-2010 - 2:59pm

Yes wouldn't that be great to have these sessions more often. If there's another I bet the Republicans come better prepared.


Hmmm, maybe or maybe not. I'm sure they had plenty of time to play "stump the President"

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 02-02-2010 - 3:17pm
When he mentioned the Rep's that had turned down the stimulus money but showed-up at ribbon cutting ceremonies for the projects that were paid for by those monies. Hypocrites!

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2007
Tue, 02-02-2010 - 5:34pm

When he mentioned the Rep's that had turned down the stimulus money but showed-up at ribbon cutting ceremonies for the projects that were paid for by those monies. Hypocrites!


Yes! I loved that! He was much nicer about it than I would have been. I also loved how he said they talk about wanting to work together, but after all the name calling they've done, if they do work together, their constituents will be mad.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 02-03-2010 - 8:41am

"..after all the name calling they've done, if they do work together, their constituents will be mad."

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 02-04-2010 - 3:13pm

Will this face-to-face lead to better


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-26-2005
Sat, 02-06-2010 - 11:08am

"I don't see the GOP being interested in anything but getting their 'power' back.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sat, 02-06-2010 - 12:44pm

"The deficit when Bush left office was at 488 billion."

The figure you posted is incorrect.

$5 trillion added to national debt under Bush

We know the public debt has grown dramatically during the past eight years.

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, pegged the increase at $4 trillion recently.

Emanuel appeared on Meet the Press the Sunday before Obama took office and was asked about Obama's spending plans and whether he was concerned about adding even more to the national debt.

Emanuel began by pointing out that the national debt increased significantly during the Bush administration, then he defended the need for a stimulus bill to help the economy.

"Actually, there was a surplus at one time, and now we've added, in the last eight years, $4 trillion of debt to the nation's obligations," Emanuel said. More see link.....
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jan/22/rahm-emanuel/5-trillion-added-national-debt-under-bush/

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-26-2005
Sat, 02-06-2010 - 2:33pm

Please check your facts first... Are you sure you know what a deficit is?


http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/


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