Earlier this month, President Obama made a big show about rolling out a “to-do” list he had for Congress. In a speech in Albany, NY, he said, “[T]oday I’m announcing a handy little ‘To-Do’ list that we’ve put together for Congress. You can see it for yourselves at whitehouse.gov. It’s about the size of a Post-It note, so every member of Congress should have time to read it and they can glance at it every so often. And hopefully we’ll just be checking off the list . . . .”
But Roll Call reports that Senate Democrats didn’t seem to get their to-do list from the president. In fact, “several Senators confessed to Roll Call that they don’t know what is on the to-do list anyway, despite several speeches in which Obama has urged his followers to tweet, call, write and email lawmakers urging them to take it up.”
“‘Didn’t we do some things he wanted us to do?’ asked Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) . . . . ‘Do you have a copy of the to-do list?’ Landrieu asked. . . . ‘I don’t have a copy of it; I’m sure my staff does,’ said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), when asked when the Senate might get to it. . . . ‘What time frame did he put on that to-do list?’ When told the president said the to-do list could be done ‘now,’ Casey joked, ‘Now is a very expansive term. It’s not even the summer yet.’ . . . ‘Didn’t we just try to move on student loans. Wasn’t that on his list?’ asked Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). No, that’s a separate priority.”
Not only do Democrats not seem to know what’s on the president’s list, they’re apparently in no rush to do anything about it. “[S]o far, neither chamber has scheduled a vote on any of the five items the president has urged them to tackle ‘right now,’” Roll Call writes. “‘You’d have to ask Harry Reid’ why the list hasn’t moved, Levin said.”
Republicans interviewed for the article made important points as to why President Obama’s agenda is going nowhere, yet again. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Roll Call, “The fact of life is none of us work for the president.” He noted, “The president’s pretty much irrelevant, because he’s basically given up on governing and is campaigning.” And Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) pointed out, “I think if the president wanted to get some stuff done, he could call up [on] the phone and tell the Majority Leader to move ahead on any number of bills.”
However, Democrats have been complaining recently that the president simply hasn’t been doing that. Politico reported last week that in the eyes of senior Democrats, Obama “doesn’t call. He doesn’t write. He doesn’t drop by for a visit.” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) “can’t recall the last time he talked to the president” and Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) lamented, “…the president is not as engaged — at least with me.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We’ve got a President who is more interested in running around to college campuses spreading some poll-tested message of the day than he is in actually accomplishing anything. This is the problem.”
Article written by: Tom White
About Tom White
Tom is a US Navy Veteran, owns an Insurance Agency and is currently an IT Manager for a Virginia Distributor. He has been published in American Thinker, currently writes for the Richmond Examiner as well as Virginia Right! Blog. Tom lives in Hanover County, Va and is involved in politics at every level and is a Recovering Republican who has finally had enough of the War on Conservatives in progress with the Leadership of the GOP on a National Level.
- Web |
- More Posts (4004)
