By Ian Ziller
Liberal Arts – Political Science Major
Last week the President had his State of the Union address before Congress. The speech tackled the many issues that the President wished to address, including free community college, trade agreements, raising taxes on the wealthy, and talks with Iran. The President talked about all of these and he also said that he would use his veto power. Up to now, President Obama has only ever used his veto power twice; however, this is the first time that Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress in his presidency.
The question is, how much of this will actually get passed? It is likely that since Republicans control both Houses, it will be difficult to get anything passed. However, if either side wants to get their agenda through, they may have to start compromising since the Republicans can’t get anything passed without the support of the president, and the president can’t get anything done without it going through Congress. So the parties may have no choice but to negotiate. However, as seen with the government shut down a couple of years ago, it could mean that Congress does not want to work with the president and may refuse to negotiate.
So, the question remains: how likely is it that the president and Congress can work together? It will be an interesting issue to watch.