Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago Wednesday night, President Barack Obama found a word to describe the current climate in Congress: "stuck."
Obama bewailed the logjam, explaining how the campaigning calendar is getting in the way of the future.
“We’ve got a politics that’s stuck right now,” he said, according to a pool report. “The reason it’s stuck is because people spend more time thinking about the next election than they do the next generation."
Obama added that compromise remains his objective with Republicans, maintaining optimism that Washington "can be fixed." But he added that the solution may involve other methods than working with the GOP.
"One way to do that is to have a Democratic House of Representatives," Obama said, via the pool report.
Obama's Wednesday fundraisers were held for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which has seen strong numbers over the course of 2013. Back in April, the DCCC hauled in $5.4 million, bringing its year-to-date total up to $28 million. Entering May, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) stood at $22.5 million in earnings.
Obama's remarks come three days after former Senate Majority Leader and ex-presidential candidate Bob Dole (R-Kan.) was equally frank about his disappointment surrounding Congress' inactivity.
"It seems almost unreal that we can't get together on a budget or legislation," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "We weren't perfect, by a long shot, but at least we got our work done."
Similar to Obama, Dole sees issues with the Republican Party, adding that it needs to be "closed for repairs." He backed that assertion by casting himself as a poor fit for today's GOP.
"I doubt it," Dole said. "Reagan wouldn't have made it, certainly Nixon wouldn't have made it, because he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it."
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