President Obama started with an outstretched hand,
remembers
Eric Cantor in the New York Times,
but pulled it back with a policy lurch leftward to a place we could not go
… News
outlets, along with the Democrats, labeled us the “Party of No.” But
that didn’t reflect the reality. Our goal was to offer a viable
alternative to every major piece of legislation the Democratic majority
put forward. We wondered if the president would embrace our efforts to
bridge the policy divide, and if he did, what that might mean for
Republicans in Washington.
A
few weeks later, John and I, along with the other congressional
leaders, met with President Obama at the White House to discuss our plan
as well as his proposed stimulus bill. Bringing along a one-page
outline of our working group’s recommendations, I rather brazenly asked
the president if I could hand it out at the meeting. The president
agreed, and after glancing at it, he said to me, “Eric, I don’t see
anything crazy in here.”
I
was hopeful. But later in the meeting, when I mentioned that a stimulus
package built around government spending would be too much like “old
Washington,” the president’s tone changed. He said:
“Elections have
consequences, and at the end of the day, I won. So I think on that one I
trump you.”
It
wasn’t long afterward that we learned that Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of
the House, and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, were well on
their way to having a final stimulus package drafted, and they weren’t
really interested in any of our ideas.
… As
Americans witness the swearing in of a new president this week, it’s
another reminder that our founding fathers wanted elections to have
consequences, but they also created a system that requires factions to
work together even after a decisive election. It is my hope that the new
president and leaders in Congress live up to our founders’
expectations.
