Last week, President Barack Obama made a stop at Henninger High School in Syracuse as part of a bus tour across New York and Pennsylvania to address the cost of higher education.

Although the president was greeted relatively warmly at each of his stops, many prominent Republicans jumped at the opportunity to do what they do best — criticize Obama.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, characterized Obama as a “lame-duck president” who effectively delivers speeches, but has difficulty implementing many of his policy proposals.

But when it comes to why the president has had difficulty enacting many of his plans, Preibus should take a figurative look in the mirror.

Republicans have no one but themselves to blame for Obama’s supposed status as a “lame-duck president.”

When Democrats had supermajorities in both houses of the 111th Congress, the president faced a considerably less amount of trouble in passing such policies as the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), banking reforms and student loan reforms.

Only when Republicans seized control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections did the policy enactment and implementation stages of the policy process grind to a halt.

What’s more, it’s laughably ironic that Preibus criticized the president for not being vigilant enough in getting his policies enacted on the heels of House Republicans’ 40th vote to repeal Obamacare in early August.

Apparently, for Republicans, not only is Obama ineffective in terms of getting legislation through Congress, but the policies he’s actually been successful in implementing are no good.

I’m reminded of the old joke about the customer who complains, “The food at this restaurant is terrible — and such small portions!”

Yes, it would appear that Republican leaders would really love to have their cake and eat it, too.

When Obama takes his policy proposals to the public, he’s not doing enough to implement them. And when he reaches out to Congress to get legislation passed, he’s met with a cacophony of objections from a Republican Party still bitter about the drubbing they took this past November.

It is this constant, relenting dissent that has led to a present-day do-nothing Congress, whose astounding inaction is reflected in record-low approval ratings.

A split Congress in which each house is controlled by different parties will naturally have a more difficult time passing legislation, but the priorities of the Republican-led House are so far out of joint that the 113th Congress is on track to be one of the least productive in recent memory.

And congressional productivity isn’t likely to improve (or, more accurately, exist) in the coming weeks. The House is scheduled to convene for only nine days in the entire month of September.

The congressional stalemate over nearly every policy proposal becomes more concerning as the Sept. 30 deadline to keep the federal government operating grows ever closer.

If Congress doesn’t negotiate a budget deal by that date, the federal government is poised to shut down. Moreover, if the federal debt limit isn’t raised by then, the government faces the possibility of a default later this fall.

It seems that budget battles such as this have become the norm under the current balance of power in Congress. Republicans have grown to see compromise as weakness, and come to the negotiating table with unrealistic demands such as significant changes to Medicare and Social Security, or the dismantling of Obamacare.

It’s time for congressional Republicans to put up or shut up.

Instead of slamming Obama for going public with his policy initiatives, they should offer substantive plans of their own. Instead of relentlessly voting to repeal health care reform, they should introduce the jobs legislation they promised the American people in the 2010 midterm elections.

But the American people shouldn’t hold their breath for reasonable compromise in the face of the looming fiscal crisis. We’ll only be left with a hasty, last-minute deal that leaves us poised to begin this fight again in a few months.

David Swenton is a senior political science and writing and rhetoric major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at daswento@syr.edu or followed on Twitter at @DavidSwenton.

Published on August 28, 2013 at 1:53 am