Republican leaders in Congress left a Tuesday meeting at the White House with a very short list of ideas on how they and President Obama can cooperate with each other during Obama’s last year in office.
In addition to tackling the appropriations measures that fund the federal government, lawmakers said Obama and Republicans agreed to work together on legislation aimed at helping eradicate the mosquito-borne Zika virus, and a proposal to curb the spread of opioid abuse in the U.S.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the two issues were the ones discussed with the Obama, “on which we might make progress.” The Senate will take up a legislation aimed at curbing opioid abuse, “in the very near future,” McConnell said.
But while the GOP leaders and Obama discussed other issues, none are anywhere near reaching bipartisan agreement in the House or the Senate.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also attended the meeting. Aides from his office said Ryan “expressed hope that progress can be made to reform our criminal justice and mental health systems.”
Criminal justice reform legislation, including reforms to reduce sentencing mandates, is advancing in the House. But a similar proposal is getting pushback in the Senate and the bill has been denounced on the campaign trail by frontrunner GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, of Texas.
McConnell won’t commit to bringing it up for consideration in this year, nor will House leaders.
Obama, according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, presented five consensus agenda items that included helping Puerto Rico deal with its fiscal crisis, eradicating the Zika virus, stemming opioid abuse, passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and improving and bolstering research for curing cancer.
But Republicans discussed the disagreements they have with aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that may not get floor consideration before the November election because it lacks support. And while Obama wants Congress to award bankruptcy protection to the debt-ridden U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, Republicans are pushing for more fiscal oversight to rein in reckless spending.
McConnell told reporters Thursday the Senate won’t take up any bill that provides U.S. tax money to bail out Puerto Rico, but he didn’t rule out allowing Puerto Rico to restructure its debt.
Democrats say they won’t support oversight without giving Puerto Rico bankruptcy protection. The House hopes to act on a bill by the end of March. Progress in the Senate, however, is murky.
“We can’t really tell where our Republican colleagues are because different people are saying different things,” the Senate’s number three Democrat, Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday.
The House last year passed a medical innovation bill that would speed up cures for cancer and other diseases, but it faces an uphill climb in the Senate this year thanks to partisan disagreements over funding and whether to regulate drug prices.
“The five things that I noted that were on the president’s agenda and that the president brought up in the meeting are things that Republicans themselves say that they support,” Earnest said. “It doesn’t mean we agree on every single aspect of them, but surely there is opportunity to find common ground when trying to fight heroin addiction or trying to cure cancer.”
