NICSA 2013: Don’t Expect Progress for Two Years, Fleischer Says

MIAMI - American poitics have entered an “era of bad will,’’ according to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer

The result: No results. Nothing will happen of note on the federal budget until after the next Congressional elections, he forecast, at the 2013 NICSA Annual Conference and Expo.

Republicans in the House and Senate “do not trust President Obama,’’ he said.


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Former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and his boss, George W. Bush, a Republican, had an ability to bring together both sides of the aisle on important issues, according to Fleischer. That came, he suggested, because of their longer service in public offices before becoming president. Obama, he noted, had been an Illinois senator and only briefly a U.S. Senator, before becoming president.

Obama “doesn’t’ have the same strength” and tends to rely more on “oratorical” skills.

As a result, “there doesn't seem to be any good will to bring both sides together,’’ he said.

For Obama to succeed, the 2014 House elections will be key. If Democrats win big, they could control both houses and get their approaches to taxation and budget cuts accomplished.

Until and unless Nancy Pelosi again becomes Speaker of the House, a sign of the Democrats becming the majority party in that chamber, "I hold very little hope that anything of significance will happen,’’ he said.

“Compromise just does not seem to be in the air in either direction of Pennsylvania Avenue,’’ he said.

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