Barack Obama: News Conference on Congressional Gridlock

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  I am glad to see that all of you braved the weather to be here.  A little while ago I had a meeting with the Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, and it went very well.  In fact, I understand that McConnell and Reid are out doing snow angels on the South Lawn together.  (Laughter.)  Can you picture that, Chuck?  Not really?The meeting did go well, and I appreciate them making the trek.  We had a good and frank conversation and it's one that I hope we can continue on a more regular basis.We all understand that there are legitimate and genuine differences between the parties, but despite the political posturing that often paralyzes this town, there are many issues upon which we can and should agree.  That's what the American people are demanding of us.  I think they're tired of every day being Election Day in Washington.  And at this critical time in our country, the people sent us here expect a seriousness of purpose that transcends petty politics.That's why I'm going to continue to seek the best ideas from either party as we work to tackle the pressing challenges ahead.  I am confident, for example, that when one in 10 of our fellow citizens can't work, we should be able to come together and help business create more jobs.  We ought to be able to agree on providing small businesses with additional tax credits and much needed lines of credit.  We ought to agree on investments in crumbling roads and bridges, and we should agree on tax breaks for making homes more energy-efficient -- all of which will put more Americans to work.  Many of the job proposals that I've laid out have passed the House and are soon going to be debated in the Senate.  We spent a lot of time in this meeting discussing a jobs package and how we could move forward on that.  And if there are additional ideas, I will consider them as well.  What I won't consider is doing nothing in the face of a lot of hardship across the country. We also talked about restoring fiscal responsibility.  There are few matters on which there is as much vigorous bipartisan agreement, at least in public, but unfortunately there's also a lot of partisan wrangling behind closed doors.  This is what we know for sure:  For us to solve this extraordinary problem that is so many years in the making, it's going to take the cooperation of both parties.  It's not going to happen in any other way.I'm pleased that Congress supported my request to restore the pay-as-you-go rule, which was instrumental in turning deficits into surpluses during the 1990s.  I've also called for a bipartisan fiscal commission.  Unfortunately this measure, which originally had received the support of a bipartisan majority of the Senate and was cosponsored by Senators Conrad and Gregg, Democrats and Republicans, was blocked there.  So I'm going to be creating this commission by executive order.  And during our meeting I asked the leadership of both parties to join in this serious effort to address our long-term deficits, because when the politics is put aside, the reality of our fiscal challenge is not subject to interpretation.  Math is not partisan.  There ought to be a debate about how to close our deficits.  What we can't accept is business as usual, and we can't afford grandstanding at the expense of actually getting something done.During our meeting we also touched briefly on how we can move forward on health reform.  I've already announced that in two weeks I'll be holding a meeting with people from both parties, and as I told the congressional leadership, I'm looking forward to a constructive debate with plans that need to be measured against this test.  Does it bring down costs for all Americans as well as for the federal government, which spends a huge amount on health care?  Does it provide adequate protection against abuses by the insurance industry?  Does it make coverage affordable and available to the tens of millions of working Americans who don't have it right now?  And does it help us get on a path of fiscal sustainability?We also talked about why this is so urgent.  Just this week, there was a report that Anthem Blue Cross, which is the largest insurer in the largest state, California, is planning on raising premiums for many individual policyholders by as much as 39 percent.  If we don't act, this is just a preview of coming attractions.  Premiums will continue to rise for folks with insurance; millions more will lose their coverage altogether; our deficits will continue to grow larger.  And we have an obligation -- both parties -- to tackle this issue in a serious way. Now, bipartisanship depends on a willingness among both Democrats and Republicans to put aside matters of party for the good of the country.  I won't hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party, but I also won't hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that's rooted not in substantive disagreements but in political expedience.  We talked about this as well, particularly when it comes to the confirmation process.  I respect the Senate's role to advise and consent, but for months, qualified, non- controversial nominees for critical positions in government, often positions related to our national security, have been held up despite having overwhelming support.  My nominee for one important job, the head of General Services Administration, which helps run the government, was denied a vote for nine months.  When she finally got a vote on her nomination, she was confirmed 96 to nothing.  That's not advise and consent; that's delay and obstruct.One senator, as you all are aware, had put a hold on every single nominee that we had put forward due to a dispute over a couple of earmarks in his state.  In our meeting, I asked the congressional leadership to put a stop to these holds in which nominees for critical jobs are denied a vote for months.  Surely we can set aside partisanship and do what's traditionally been done to confirm these nominations.  If the Senate does not act -- and I made this very clear -- if the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess, because we can't afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government.My hope is that this will be the first of a series of meetings that I have with leadership of both parties in Congress.  We've got to get past the tired debates that have plagued our politics and left behind nothing but soaring debt and mounting challenges, greater hardships among the American people, and extraordinary frustrations among the American people.  Those frustrations are what led me to run for President, and as long as I'm here in Washington, I intend to try to make this government work on their behalf.So, you know, I'm going to take a couple of questions, guys.Major.Q    After meeting with you, John Boehner came out and told us, "The House can't pass the health care bill it once passed; the Senate can't pass the health care bill it once passed.  Why would we have a conversation about legislation that can't pass?"  As a part of that, he said you and your White House and congressional Democrats should start over entirely from scratch on health care reform.  How do you respond?  Are you willing to do that?THE PRESIDENT:  Well, here's how I responded to John in the meeting, and I've said this publicly before.  There are some core goals that have to be met.  We've got to control costs, both for families and businesses, but also for our government.  Everybody out there who talks about deficits has to acknowledge that the single biggest driver of our deficits is health care spending.  We cannot deal with our deficits and debt long term unless we get a handle on that.  So that has to be part of a package.Number two, we've got to deal with insurance abuses that affect millions of Americans who've got health insurance.  And number three, we've got to make health insurance more available to folks in the individual market, as I just mentioned, in California, who are suddenly seeing their premiums go up 39 percent.  That applies to the majority of small businesses, as well as sole proprietors.  They are struggling.So I've got these goals.  Now, we have a package, as we work through the differences between the House and the Senate, and we'll put it up on a Web site for all to see over a long period of time, that meets those criteria, meets those goals.  But when I was in Baltimore talking to the House Republicans, they indicated, we can accomplish some of these goals at no cost.  And I said, great, let me see it.  And I have no interest in doing something that's more expensive and harder to accomplish if somebody else has an easier way to do it. So I'm going to be starting from scratch in the sense that I will be open to any ideas that help promote these goals.  What I will not do, what I don't think makes sense and I don't think the American people want to see, would be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues; another six months or eight months or nine months worth of hearings in every single committee in the House and the Senate in which there's a lot of posturing.  Let's get the relevant parties together; let's put the best ideas on the table.  My hope is that we can find enough overlap that we can say this is the right way to move forward, even if I don't get every single thing that I want.But here's the point that I made to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell:  Bipartisanship can't be that I agree to all the things that they believe in or want, and they agree to none of the things I believe in and want, and that's the price of bipartisanship, right?  But that's sometimes the way it gets presented.  Mitch McConnell said something very nice in the meeting about how he supports our goals on nuclear energy and clean coal technology and more drilling to increase oil production.  Well, of course he lik

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