“Less than two weeks after Republicans won control of Congress, acrimony over immigration is dampening hopes for cooperation on more ambitious initiatives, with President Obama and GOP lawmakers bracing not for compromise but for combat,” the Washington Post reports.

“Obama has been promising to cut the nation’s corporate tax rate, the highest in the world, for nearly three years. And with a rash of companies moving abroad to escape U.S. taxes, many Republicans see action on that issue as critical to both the economy and their political fortunes in 2016, when more than 20 GOP senators will be up for reelection.”

“However, lawmakers say that instead of engaging with Republicans, Obama has provoked them on a range of issues, most explosively his threat to unilaterally halt deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. And instead of starting work on tax legislation that would be politically and substantively challenging under the best circumstances, Republicans are threatening another bitter partisan showdown that risks shutting down the government.”