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Obama to Democrats: No time to "lick our wounds"

07 February 2010 03:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. President Barack Obama told fellow Democrats on Saturday this is no time to "lick our wounds and try to hang on" and vowed instead to press ahead with financial regulatory and healthcare reforms, APAreports citing Reuters.

With his legislative agenda in limbo, Obama sought to rally Democratic activists still reeling from the loss of a pivotal Senate seat last month and now scrambling to head off a Republican challenge in the November congressional elections.

Obama came out swinging at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, accusing Republicans of caring more about "scoring political points" than solving the country’s pressing problems like high unemployment.

But Obama presented no new ideas on how the Democrats could overcome obstacles that have stalled his domestic priorities.

The political climate in Washington has become more fractured as lawmakers adjust to a new reality now that the Republicans’ gain of a Massachusetts Senate seat has given them the ability to block bills using procedural hurdles.

Hammering one of his biggest challenges, Obama said "America can’t afford to wait" for a financial regulatory overhaul to plug gaps widely seen as the root of the 2008 markets crisis that tipped the economy into deep recession.

He spoke a day after Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd declared an impasse with Senator Richard Shelby, his Republican counterpart in negotiations to reach a compromise on tightening financial rules. The situation leaves Democrats with the option of trying to proceed alone.

"If we’ve learned anything from the devastating recession, we know that wise regulation actually can enhance the market and make it more stable and make our economy work better," Obama said. "We can’t return to the dereliction of duty that helped deliver this recession."

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod suggested, in an interview to air on C-SPAN on Sunday, that some Republicans were yielding to an "enormous lobbying campaign" by financial firms opposed to reform.

"If the Republican Party makes a decision that they can turn this into a fund-raising device, then it’s going to become more difficult," he told the network on Friday.