Conservative

Pulliam: Republican victory sends clear message to Obama administration

Let the trumpets blare — the GOP is victorious. On Nov. 4, the Republican Party took control of the U.S. Senate with a net gain of seven seats. The American people sent a strong message to the White House: they are fed up with the Obama administration.

This election was about President Barack Obama’s policies, make no doubt about that. He needs to take their message to heart and work with Congress to find common ground on bipartisan issues because his historical legacy is at stake.

Even Obama himself said that his “policies are on the ballot” according to an Oct. 2 article from the Weekly Standard. Nearly every candidate for the GOP ran on an anti-Obama platform and every new Republican challenger who ran against Obamacare won.

Now that the playing field seems to be swinging in favor of Republicans, Obama needs to take this message from the American people very seriously. According to a Nov. 3 NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, 67 percent of registered voters want to see “a great deal of change” or “quite a bit of change” in Obama’s leadership style. They are clearly tired of his policy agenda and wanted a change in Washington.

This referendum against Obama is obviously not a welcomed event for the White House. But considering the hand that has been dealt to the second-term president, compromising on key bipartisan issues is the necessary course of action.



For example, corporate tax reform is a bipartisan issue that Congress and Obama should be able to work together. Both Republicans and Obama see the U.S.’s current corporate tax rate as hindrance to job growth. Our corporate tax rate, at 35 percent, is one of the highest in the world. Obama and the GOP should be able to reach middle ground on lowering this rate to a more competitive level, while also reducing the tax deductions a corporation receives from the federal government. This road of compromise allows for more job growth while also forcing corporations to pay more of their fair share to the federal government, plus a point in the bipartisanship category.

Obama would be very wise to focus on working with Republicans rather than using executive orders to completely bypass Congress in order to achieve his own policy agenda. For example, the president has repeatedly threatened to use executive action to fix the drawn out issues regarding immigration. Using his pen to ignore Congress would be very unwise on the president’s part.

Republican leadership has repeatedly stated that executive action on immigration will severely damage the relationship between the White House and the GOP-controlled Congress. Damaging an already strained relationship is never good politics and would only increase the now-normal gridlock in Washington. In addition, many conservative leaders have suggested that executive orders on immigration may jeopardize the nomination process for Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Loretta Lynch. The nomination confirmation process usually goes rather smoothly considering the current dysfunction of Washington. Making the nomination process more difficult will only make the American people lose more faith in their government as well as intensify the head butting between Obama and the GOP in the next two years.

At the end of the day, compromise is usually the right move. The American people have spoken and it is time for the GOP to challenge the agenda set forth by the Obama administration. Hopefully, the wisdom that Obama has acquired during his six years in office can inform him that compromise is the best route to take. For the sake of the country, I pray that this wisdom is present in the forefront of the president’s mind.

Chris Pulliam is a sophomore policy studies and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected].





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