People Over Partisanship
By Sen. John Thune
President Biden pledged to be a president for all Americans. He reiterated that sentiment at his inauguration, stating, “On this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation.” But it’s not enough to talk about unity. It has to be matched with action. And too many of the president’s actions so far have been more calculated to appeal to the far-left wing of the Democrat Party than to unite Americans.
In his first two weeks in office, the president has signed off on a long list of executive actions, many of which read like a wish list of liberal priorities. In a nod to the far-left environmental wing of the Democrat Party, the president issued a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and called a halt to the Keystone XL pipeline. On day one of his presidency, President Biden effectively fired 2,000 pipeline workers and told another 9,000 to never show up.
Then, of course, there’s the president’s order halting construction of the wall on our southern border. The Biden administration has plans for sweeping immigration reform, but does not seem to be placing much of an emphasis on border security. Instead, they’ve reduced the wall to a symbol of the Trump administration and chose to satisfy immigration activists by halting construction – without offering alternate ways to secure our borders against a flood of illegal immigration or drug and human trafficking and other criminal activity.
Then of course there’s the president’s decision to overturn the Mexico City policy, which prevents taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions in other countries. The majority of Americans do not believe in unrestricted abortion, yet the president has acted to ensure that American tax dollars can go to fund overseas abortions – whether Americans want them to or not. In addition, this administration has given every sign that it intends to pursue a radically pro-abortion agenda that is out of step with the views of the majority of Americans.
And most recently, the president teamed up with Senate Democrats to push through a partisan budget resolution designed to pave the way for a partisan COVID relief measure – despite the fact that Congress has produced five prior COVID relief packages and appropriated trillions of dollars on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.
Now is the time for President Biden to show whether he really intends to live up to his inaugural pledge and unify our nation. That means not just talk, but action. It means working with lawmakers of both parties to develop legislation – not pushing exclusively Democrat measures. It means urging Democrat congressional leaders to actually negotiate with Republicans, instead of trying to force through an agenda that lacks the support of half or more of the country. And it means focusing less on checking off the priorities of the far left and more on actually representing the views of a majority of Americans.
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Senator Thune,
Which ‘people’ do you serve?
Time for Senator Thune, and all other concerned Republicans and Independents, to do more than just complain. The Democrats are opening the door next week to expose what happened during the election, which was no more legitimate than Biden’s call for unity. There is a documentary being released today by Mike Lindell that needs to be taken seriously, and not just ignored. I provided Senator Thune’s and Congressman Dusty Johnson’s offices of some of that content during the first week of January. They have taken no action.
Well of course he hasn’t. He is on public record that there is no voter fraud.
A documentary by Mike Lindell. Wow. That just says it all, doesn’t it.
Is it made up or is is factual? Does he present evidence to back up his assertions? If so, what difference does it make? I didn’t realize you had to belong to a certain “elite class” of citizenry to present a factual arguments and make the case.
It is time to quit playing nice. You have been doing that and all you get is stabbed in the back. I am beginning to believe you don’t really care as long as you keep your Senate job. The Senate majority leader is one of the most hypocritical people in the Senate and every time he opens his mouth to criticize, he is usually guilty of the same thing. It would be a good thing if the Republicans in the Senate started to fight against what is coming from the White House and that clown leading the Democrats.
Well said
Its this obstructionist malarkey that has created such dysfunction in the senate. Didn’t you learn about cooperation and sharing in kindergarten?
OH…so as long as the Republicans bend over to the demands of the democrats and not make a fuss then all is well. But as long as the Republicans stand up and fight against the policy disasters of the democrats that are in the process of being enacted then it’s obstructionist.
Where was this self-righteous sanctimony concerning the democrats over the last 4 years…….HMMMM? Or even the last 9 months? Pelosi and company had plenty of opportunity to show cooperation but chose not to with the goal of hurting the Trump administration.
The democrats needs to take that self-righteous finger of accusation they just love to wave around in everyone’s face and point it right back at themselves.
The moment good faith negotiation and compromise was equated with “bending over,” the system for actually getting things done began to crumble. Lets not kid ourselves into thinking that there was anything in the way of bipartisanship from Pres. Trump either. He did what he wanted to do when he had the power to do it. I fully support Sen. Thune’s efforts to reform this environment and hope that he follows through.
President Trump’s team reached out on many occasions where they met a brick wall from schumer and pelosi, remember the Covid relief needed the entire summer of 2020 leading up through election day? Pelosi sat on her ass for political reason for the sole purpose to hurt President Trump.
And what kind of “good faith” is on display when pelosi is behind President Trump during every State of the Union and she is visibly mocking him? Then, at the end of the last State of the Union, the Speaker of the House stands up and rips up a copy of the speech on nationwide, live TV? Ya, that sends a very clear and strong message that pelosi is willing to negotiate “in good faith” with President Trump.
OH, and how about the cooperation and “good faith” that was on display from the democrats starting literally 15 minutes after President Trump was inaugurated? You know the effort to remove him from office using a BS dossier that was paid for by the clinton campaign and the DNC that was known to be a collection of fabricated assertions.
The democrats spent the entire Trump presidency trying to take him down by any and all means and were doing everything they could to block him……one can’t negotiate with people who are unwilling.