BALTIMORE (Jan. 29) - In a remarkably frank encounter, President Barack Obama chastised Republican lawmakers on Friday for opposing him on taxes, health care and economic stimulus, while they accused him of ignoring their ideas and driving up the national debt.
The president and GOP House members took turns questioning and sometimes lecturing each other face to face for more than hour at the Republican gathering.
Obama warned that their sharp criticisms of him over the past year make it almost politically impossible for them to agree with him even if an accord would help the American people. They said he was misleading the American people in saying they had offered no serious alternatives to his proposals.
While both parties were conciliatory at times, the televised exchange featured pointed complaints and accusations that went well beyond the terse sound bites that dominate much of the nation's political debate.
Obama said Republican lawmakers have attacked his health care overhaul so fiercely, "you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot." The plan's components are mainstream, common-sense items, he said, and deserving of some bipartisan support.
"I am not an ideologue," the president said.
The Republicans sat attentively throughout Obama's speech and the discussion. There was some grumbling when he remarked - after being pressed about closed-door health care negotiations - that most of the legislation was developed in congressional committees in front of television cameras.
"That was a messy process," he acknowledged.
Several Republicans challenged Obama with lengthy complaints and sharp questions.
"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?" asked Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.
Obama showed little sympathy, disputing Price's claim that a Republican plan would cover nearly all Americans without raising taxes.
"That's just not true," said Obama. He called such claims "boilerplate" meant to score political points.
Obama said a GOP-driven "politics of no" was blocking action on bills that could help Americans obtain jobs and health care.
In another barbed exchange, he said some in the audience have attended ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects in their districts funded by the 2009 stimulus package they voted against. Obama also questioned why Republicans have overwhelmingly opposed his tax-cut policies, which he said have benefited 95 percent of American families.
"This notion that this was a radical package is just not true," Obama said.
GOP lawmakers pressed him to pledge 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 but demurred on the idea of cutting everyone's taxes. Billionaires don't need tax cuts, he said.
In his opening remarks, Obama criticized a Washington culture driven by opinion polls and nonstop political campaigns.
"But 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 $787 billion economic stimulus bill enacted a year ago.
He also noted overwhelming Republican opposition to his proposed overhaul of the nation's health care, which now is in legislative peril. Obama said he would gladly look at better ideas, but he urged Republicans to acknowledge the difficulties that many Americans face in obtaining good health care.
Obama said it makes ideological sense for Democrats and Republicans to work together on some issues such as charging fees to banks that benefited from a federal bailout, temporarily freezing some government spending, keeping jobs from being exported and paying for new government programs when they are created.
Republicans have sharply criticized Obama's approach to most of these issues.
. Remember...action not words.
