House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took issue with the Republican leadership’s request to postpone a White House meeting with Congressional leaders.
“I can never remember an instance where President Bush asked me or the Democratic leadership to come down and meet with them that we did not accommodate our schedule to that request,” Hoyer told reporters Thursday morning. “I think that is not only respectful of the President of the United States but it also furthers the ability to solve the problems confronting the country.”
The meeting, informally called “the Slurpee Summit” in a nod to President Obama’s midterm campaign rhetoric, was initially supposed to take place Thursday. It has now been rescheduled for November 30th after Republicans cited scheduling conflicts.
Hoyer suggested that the GOP’s apparent flippancy towards the White House goes further than the summit, noting that Democrats supported the Bush administration’s controversial TARP plan while Republicans balked at the Recovery Act.