Mary Troyan

USA Today

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, said Wednesday he expects quick action in Congress to roll back major parts of President Obama’s legacy including health care and environmental regulations.

But McConnell, who helped engineer enough Republican victories in close Senate races for him to keep his job as majority leader, also cautioned against GOP overreach once the party controls the executive and legislative branches of government come January.

“I don’t think we should act as if we going to be in the majority forever,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill. “We’ve been given a temporary lease on power if you will, and I think we need to use it responsibly.”

That said, the Kentucky Republican gleefully described the repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act as an “item pretty high on our agenda.”

“Let’s just stipulate that every single Republican thought Obamacare was a mistake, without exception,” he said. “That is still our view and you can expect us with a new president with same view to address that issue.”

He also said Obama’s limits on the coal industry to combat climate change were a prime target for elimination once Trump takes office early next year.

Before then, Congress is under more immediate pressure to approve a budget for the rest of the fiscal year, a task left unfinished before the elections. The current funding measure expires Dec. 9, and will be a main focus when Congress returns to action next week.

The brief lame-duck session is also likely to include action on the 21st Century Cures Act, a broad proposal designed to speed up medical research and innovation, but not Obama’s long-stalled Supreme Court nominee or the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, McConnell said.

McConnell said he has spoken to Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and incoming Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York about the legislative agenda for the 115th Congress, which will have slightly smaller Republican majorities after Tuesday’s elections.

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He didn’t rule out work on criminal justice reform and an overhaul of the tax code that lowers rates for corporations and businesses, eliminates loopholes and doesn't raise new revenue.

He did rule out imposing term limits on members of Congress, despite Trump’s support for the idea.

“We have term limits now — they’re called elections,” McConnell said.

Some topics were off limits for McConnell, including a rehashing of some of Trump's more incendiary comments during the campaign. He declined to address Trump’s previous assertion that Mexican immigrants are criminals or the prospects for Trump's plan to build a wall along the Southern border.

McConnell congratulated Trump and and said the election was "clearly an indication that the American people would like to try something new and I know the speaker shares my view that, we would like to see the country go in a different direction and intend to work with him to change the course of America."

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