President Obama says that he might have to use the veto pen a bit more with a Congress soon to be controlled entirely by the GOP, but that Republicans are also going to be in a position where they have to show they can govern responsibly.
“I can always do better in every aspect of my job, and congressional relations isn’t exempt from that,” he told NPR. “I think the circumstances will have changed, though.”
He said he’s “obviously frustrated” with the results of the midterm election and that he and the Democratic party didn’t make as good of a case as they should have.
“On the other hand, now you’ve got Republicans in a position where it’s not enough for them simply to grind the wheels of Congress to a halt and then blame me,” he said. “They are going to be in a position in which they have to show that they can responsibly govern, given that they have significant majorities in both chambers.”
He said he wants to work with them and get things done and that he doesn’t have another election to run, and noted that he hasn’t used the veto pen very often because legislation he’s objected to was typically bottled up in the Democratic Senate even after Republicans re-took control of the House after the 2010 midterm elections.
“Now I suspect there are going to be some times where I’ve got to pull that pen out. And I’m going to defend gains that we’ve made in health care; I’m going to defend gains that we’ve made on environment and clean air and clean water,” he said.
“But what I’m hopeful about — and we saw this so far at least in the lame duck — is a recognition by both Speaker Boehner and Mitch McConnell that people are looking to them to get things done and that the fact that we disagree on one thing shouldn’t prohibit us from getting progress on the areas where there’s some overlap,” he continued.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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