The leaders of the Republican Governors Association lashed out at President Barack Obama at a Monday press conference following a meeting at the White House, saying that they left the meeting feeling frustrated with a president who is all talk and no action.
“I walked out of there once again being told what he wanted to happen, but he’s not willing to push the leadership across the Congress to make sure it does happen,” said South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley.
“My takeaway was here is a president who’s saying we could be doing more on education, here is a president saying give more money to education, but this is also a president that is not untying any of the strings that come with the federal mandates,” Haley said. “Enough of the talk, and now it is time for action.”
“He’s constantly telling us what we should spend on, but he’s not allowing us the ability to do it,” she said. For example, Haley said, “We constantly have to deal with these Medicaid budgets, but he’s not giving us the flexibility to do that.”
Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, chairman of the RGA, spoke of some possible areas of “overlap” between Republican governors and the Obama administration, like education and programs to support veterans and their families. But he also cited a long list of areas where there were “concerns.”
McDonnell specified “taxes and spending and deficits and job creation, and economic development, energy” as areas of concern. He called the national debt “unsustainable and immoral,” and said that it was time for the public to collect on Obama’s promise that if he couldn’t get things done in three years, he would be a one term president. (RELATED: More on Nikki Haley)
“It’s time for a new president,” McDonnell said.
Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal went even further, saying that Obama has failed as a president.
“I went into the White House this morning thinking we need a conservative president in the White House,” Jindal said. “I left today’s meeting continuing to believe that we need a conservative president in the White House.”
Jindal’s “two fundamental concerns with this administration,” he said, were the president’s ideology and incompetence.
“This has not been a competent presidency,” he said simply.
Jindal said governors on both sides of the aisle shared concerns with the president about energy policy, particularly steeply rising gas prices.
“The president was articulate; as you’d expect, he’s great at delivering a speech,” Jindal said. “Unfortunately, the actions don’t match the record.”