Obama rips politically motivated GOP 'obstruction'
President Obama answered questions from Senate Democrats Wednesday. (Getty Images.)
Washington (CNN) - President Obama tore into the Republican opposition on Capitol Hill Wednesday, blaming the GOP for what he called politically motivated opposition on virtually every issue.
Democrats have been willing to incorporate Republican ideas on health care and other issues, he said, but Republicans have not been willing to do the same.
Addressing a gathering of Senate Democrats, Obama promised to "call (Republicans) out when (Democrats) extend a hand and get a fist in return."
Several Democrats facing tough election fights this November were given time to ask the president questions on high-profile issues such as trade and deficit reduction. Much of the president's time, however, was used to lash out at GOP tactics.
Senate Republicans, he said, have tried to employ the filibuster more over the past year than in all of the 1950s and 1960s combined. The GOP's strategy has been "20 years of obstruction packed into one," he said.
"If you want to govern, you can't just say no," he argued. "It can't be about just scoring points." The filibuster, he added, only works as intended if there is a "genuine spirit of compromise."
Updated: 1:07 p.m.
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it is time the republicans tried to be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.
The current economic and political battle is between the "Have" and the "Have-nots". The middle and lower class have had tremendous sacrifices forced upon them by the current recession and the upper class refuses to participate in these economic sacrafices. EVERYONE must share the responsibility of doing whats right for all Americans. This mean that the "Rich" need to sacrafice a little each, so that we can get the American economic engine going again. They always seem to get it back in the end.
I can't believe that people are voting the repubs back into office.......What is wrong with Americans, we are sooooooo easy to forget
let me see,,, democrats controll ,, the house ,, the senate,, and the white house,,,, soundsl like to me he dont need nay of there help,, unless he is looking for a scape goat...
Quit your whining Obama! You have enough Democrat votes to get anything you want.
CAN'T YOU BRING YOUR OWN PARTY TOGETHER INSTEAD OF BLAMING OTHERS.
Get your own house in order before you start trowing rocks.
BLAME BUSH, BLAME THE REPUBLICANS. See the pattern!
This President is sigle-handedly defeating the entire Republican agenda. When the light of day, and civil discourse is finally let into these discussions, the Republican obstructionists really have nothing to offer America.
Go Obama!
Bipartisanship and working together does not mean having a state of the union speech then proposing the same junk ideas and having the opposition vote for them. It means working together to come up with ideas and then voting on them. You know give and take, not the same bogus ideas that got shot down already.
Too bad the discussion continues to be "us and them". When will the nations leaders use the "W" word? We are all Americans.
It highlights serious issues when Republican co-sponsors vote AGAINST deficit reduction legislation only after President Obama extended his support for their legislation.
Many Americans are sick of this obstructive nonsense by the GOP to avoid looking too (gasp!) bipartisan. Do your jobs taxpayers pay both sides to do!
My President, nobody is going to pay any more for this result. Get your own staff in order before you show up for a phony fight. Fire some top staff including Snidley Whiplash AKA Axelrod, dig deep and find some real anger in you do do something that you can believe in.
ohh is poor lil bamy upset because the other kids don't want to play with him?
Poor Obama.
He wants to keep lying to us while giving our tax dollars (and our children's tax dollars) to his greedy friends. If it wasn't for those pesky Republicans, he could give another trillion to his fat banker friends, steal 1/2 trillion from your grandmother's Medicare, and make you and me pay for it.
Every day, more and more Americans realize this guy is a professional liar.
Poor Obama.
The republicans have not filibustered anything!!! They didn't have the power to. The dems have had the power and couldn't get squat passed, AS USUAL. The dems historically are the party of no because they can't get things done!
Excuse me Mr. President, but until Scott Brown is sworn in you still have a supermajority. If you can't even convince your own party to support your agenda, why blame Republicans. You can pass anything you want without a single Republican vote. The fact that the past year has been a bust is a testimony to poor Democratic leadership, not Republican obstructionism.
Amen! The President has every right to call them out because they try everything possible to block is vision/plan but didn't say anything when Bush screwed the entire world and his own party!
Maybe its your agenda that favors trial lawyers and unions over the American people.
Thank you, Mr. President, for saying what everyone knows: The GOP only cares about regaining power and to heck with the rest of us!
Keep up the good work, President Obama!
The GOP/FOX has convinced the weak-minded base that Barack Obama is an afro-fascist socialist communist Indo-Kenyan Muslim terrorist.
So, they interpret any proposal that comes out of the White House, even ones that benefit these monolithic morons, as a sinister plot before they know any details. Even when they know the specifics, they'll twist them around into something that conforms to their skewed world view (ie, death panels)
These people are beyond hope and help. We need an army of deprogrammers to pull them out of the cesspool of paranoia they've chose to live in.
So much for toning down the rhetoric Mr. Obama.
The Republicanss stated over and over that they are philosophically opposed to the big programs being pushed through and they had their own ideas that they put forward (Obama acknoledged as much) but the Dems and the MSM ignored them trying to paint them as obstuctionists and "The Party of NO". The Dems idea of bi-partisanship is for the republicans to be just like them.
Obama and the Dems are trying to switch the blame for their own FAILURES on the Republicans. The Dems are the ones who had to bribe Senators and make shady back room deals with the unions and the Ins companies to try to ram it through before we knew what hit us.
"Democrats have been willing to incorporate Republican ideas on health care"
What republican Ideas have been incorporated into the health care bills?
Addressing a gathering of Senate Democrats, Obama promised to "call (Republicans) out when (Democrats) extend a hand and get a fist in return."
Did he promise to call dems out when repubs extend a hand and get a fist in return? If not then he is not working in a bipartisan manner.
Senate Republicans, he said, have employed the filibuster more over the past year than in all of the 1950s and 1960s combined.
Republicans have not had the votes to filibuster anything in the last year so that is just a flat out lie.
That covers all of his talking points. If a regular Joe like me has no problem shooting down those comments anyone should be able to see right through them.
another day, another lie from the liar-in-chief.
They are the opposition Mr. President, and with great respect they need to oppose things that they do not like, and especially they do a great job opposing things that the majority of people don't like.
Complaining belongs to kindergarten not to politics!
People will argue that the Republicans are just representing their constituents.
Fine. They've been given a chance to cooperate and compromise (you know, participate in a democracy) and since they have chosen not to, the Democrats will represent the majority that elected them move ahead without the Republicans.
And you know what? As time goes by and President Obama's policies effect positive and lasting change in our country, the Republicans worst nightmare will come true: Even their own party members will have to admit that the GOP's economic, military and foreign policies are proven failures.
And no one will care, because our lives and our country will be better.
I don't know why Obama thinks the Republicans are going to play nice. They have been a bunch of liars and cheats for the last 100 hundred years. Get the healthcare bill pass without them.
He's right. So why work with them at all? It's obvious their only interest is that of lobbyists and corporations. We would be better off without them.