Obama Confident Republicans Getting Ready For Compromise

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Sunday looked forward to accountability and responsibility from the newly-elected Republicans in the House.

“My expectation is, when I sit down with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner this week, along with the Democratic leaders, that there are a set of things that need to get done during the lame duck, and that they are not going to want to just obstruct, that they’re going to want to engage constructively,” he said.

The President made the comments Sunday to journalists aboard Air Force One as he returned from a 10-day trip to India, Indonesia, Korea and Japan.

Obama noted that “I believe it is a mistake for us to borrow $700 billion to make tax cuts permanent for millionaires and billionaires. It won’t significantly boost the economy, and it’s hugely expensive. So we can’t afford it.”

The president, however, expressed his willingness to learn “how they (the Republicans) intend to spend–how they intend to pay for it,” as he recalled that, “during the campaign at least, the Republicans expressed some strong feelings about (those tax-cuts).”

“I want to hear from them how strongly they feel about it, particularly given that they’re also saying they want to control the deficit and debt,” he added.

“Campaigning is very different from governing,” noted Obama. “All of us learn that. And they’re (the Republicans) still flush with victory, having run a strategy that was all about saying no.”

The American people “want to see us make progress precisely because they understand instinctually how competitive things are and how we have to step up our game.” Obama hoped that “we should be able at least to get through the lame duck, making sure that taxes don’t go up for middle-class families starting January 1st, that some of the key business provisions that can assure economic growth get done.”

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