House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., countered the charge that Republicans obstruct President Obama while arguing that Obama has “divided the country” for the sake of his reelection.
When the Morning Joe conversation turned to denunciations of Republicans obstructing Obama’s agenda for the last three years, McCarthy interjected that “It’s a little hard, when you’re in the minority, to be accused of blocking things when [Democrats] control all.” He noted that House Republicans have only had a majority for the last 11 months. “Normally in divided government, we do big things,” McCarthy said, recalling the major legislation that passed during Reagan and Clinton’s presidencies, but “this president feels that he has to divide the nation to win an election.”
“In the Senate, the Democrats are the ones who said ‘no’ to the jobs bill,” McCarthy said, and noted that “the leaders of [Obama’s] own party did not even endorse it until last week when they got asked by the press.”
McCarthy pointed to the free trade agreements as an example of bipartisan legislation. When pressed for examples of legislation the Republicans might support from Obama’s jobs proposal, McCarthy acknowledged that Obama “does have some smaller versions of some actions that are about small business that we are taking up in Financial Services next week.”
McCarthy did oppose more stimulus spending. “We spent $278,000 for every job that went through [with the 2009 stimulus],” before outlining a Republican economic plan.
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