GOP theme: Blame Obama Want to know why the Republicans who control both chambers of Congress can’t get more done? Look at the man in the White House, they say.

HERSHEY, Pa. — They say they want to rewrite the Tax Code. They want to use their commanding majorities to expand energy production. And Capitol Hill Republicans think they can fix the beleaguered immigration system and ink trade deals with partners around the world.

If you listened to them at their annual retreat on Thursday, only one person could scuttle everything: President Barack Obama.


It’s the Obama excuse. And it could become a mainstay in Washington for the next two years, as the GOP looks for someone to blame for the lack of action in D.C. and divert attention from the deep divides in their own ranks.

To the Republicans, the man at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is simply too hard-headed, too ideological and too out of touch to recognize what the country is crying for. He’s the one who still hasn’t accepted the results of the last two elections. And members of the new, enlarged House and Senate Republican majority who gathered in Pennsylvania — still sounding a lot like the minority party they were in 2009 — wondered if Washington will continue to grind along under a president who seems emboldened to stand up to them.

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“The challenge is getting the president to work with us,” said Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, who’s championing a bill approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline that the White House quickly threatened to filibuster.

Democrats, privately and publicly, say Republicans are out of line: Obama is still president and can still exert his will on the legislative process. (Obama vowed Thursday to do just that, telling Senate Democrats at their own retreat in Baltimore that he plans to “play offense” for the next two years.) Plus, the GOP has to work out its own divisions before Obama even has a say in what becomes law.

“Instead of seeking common ground, the Republican Congress is wasting time pushing policies they know are going nowhere,” said Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. “Democrats have been clear that we won’t support policies that rig the system for wealthy special interests against working people, so it’s disingenuous for Republicans to feign surprise. The reality is, Republicans don’t have a real agenda they just want to play political games.”

As Republicans shuffled around the Hershey Lodge here, the angst was evident.

Asked whether he detects a new attitude from Obama, Speaker John Boehner said that the “president’s focus is on the past,” and that he “never got serious about doing the kind of reform that would put America’s fiscal health in proper shape.” (The Ohio Republican did call himself an optimist, though.) Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), an advocate of immigration reform, said an overhaul is becoming more difficult because Obama threw “hurdles out that we’re going to have to repeal or jump around” — namely, the president’s unilateral decision in November to shield millions more undocumented immigrants from deportation.

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Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said his party’s ability to move forward on the key priority of tax reform “depends entirely on how willing the president is to expend political capital on that.”

“The White House and the president have expressed an interest rhetorically in the interest of tax reform,” Thune said. “But when push comes to shove really engaging with the Congress, we’ve not seen that.”

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, the No. 4 House Republican, declined to address the new sick-leave policy that Obama announced Thursday. Instead, she blamed him for instituting “more mandates and requirements from Washington, D.C.”

Even on international affairs the anger is flaring. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, wants to have a vote on whether to reject the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran — which could be a major embarrassment for the president on the world stage.

“The best route for us is to let Congress have an up-or-down vote on whether we believe that this agreement passes muster,” Corker said. “That’s the strongest way to make sure the administration negotiates strongly toward an agreement that can stand the test of time.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he told Obama in a meeting that he’s issuing too many veto threats. And indeed, he has issued a number, starting with the Keystone bill, which now lacks Democratic support in the Senate to override a filibuster. That could change, Republicans argue, if Obama softened his opposition to approving the pipeline now.

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Of course, Obama has long been the object of Republican ire. In the 2014 elections, Republicans in Congress tied him to nearly every candidate running for the House and Senate — with stunning success. But Reid, the Nevada Democrat who has controlled the Senate for almost the entirety of Obama’s presidency, has so far taken most of the Republican flak for thwarting their legislative agenda, exercising Obama’s will on Capitol Hill while shielding him from much of the blame.

With Mitch McConnell of Kentucky now firmly entrenched as Senate majority leader, the old strategy of attacking Reid for blocking jobs bills is out of date. Now Republicans have only one place to direct their ire: The White House.

“If we’re doing our work, that he’s not going to work with us on, then the country is going to stay polarized,” said Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. “He needs to work with Congress, he doesn’t need to circumvent us.”

But Republicans are hardly unified. The House passed a Homeland Security funding bill this week that stands no chance in the GOP Senate. Lawmakers seem to have no idea how they’ll solve the problem, and used an immigration forum at the Hershey retreat mainly to discuss an upcoming border security bill instead of how to solve the DHS issue.

Some Republicans are beginning to wonder aloud whether it even matters what Congress passes.

“The president will defy the laws that he’s pledged to enforce and make up laws out of thin air,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said. “We should not try to tell ourselves that we can put laws on his desk [because] even if he’ll sign them, it doesn’t mean he’s going to abide by them or enforce them.”

Despite the malaise in Hershey, Republicans aren’t completely convinced the next two years are a dead end. New Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) argued that there’s a real opportunity for expanded trade deals, while McConnell predicted Congress will write new cybersecurity laws after the high-profile hack of Sony.

On the other hand, Boehner and McConnell met with Obama at the White House earlier this week but left that huddle feeling that little had changed. Boehner called the conversation “nice,” “very polite” and “clear.”

“But I don’t know that we learned a whole lot,” he said before adding: “I think it’s way too early to tell. As I said, I’m the guy born with the glass half full. And I believe hope springs eternal. The American people want us to find a way to address their concerns. That was the big message out of the election. You hear it from our members on both sides of the Capitol. I’m hoping the president heard the same message.”