On Capitol Hill, Senator Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader, says Governor Scott Walker’s recall victory should encourage federal entitlement reform.

“[Wisconsin] was the second biggest election in America this year,” McConnell says in a phone interview. “It sent an extraordinary message to elected officials: that you can tackle the single biggest problem confronting our country, which is the massive unfunded liabilities coming our way.”

“At the federal level, it’s entitlements, but you see the same thing at the state and local levels,” he says. “There were promises made by today’s politicians to today’s union leaders that cannot possibly be met, so what happened in Wisconsin was incredibly consequential.”

McConnell, for his part, donated $25,000 to the Wisconsin Club for Growth’s political fund to support Walker’s effort.

“Now, it remains to be seen whether a state election in Wisconsin based on public-employee unions is a bellwether for the November election, which is largely going to be a referendum on the president’s very, very poor performance,” McConnell says. “But what happened in Wisconsin certainly didn’t do any harm.”

President Obama and congressional Democrats should recognize that federal entitlement reform is an easier proposition than Walker’s reforms, he adds, since Walker’s bill was immediately activated upon passage.

“Most of the things we need to do, on the entitlement side, wouldn’t kick in immediately; they would take effect over a period of years,” McConnell says. “What Walker did was much tougher and took a lot more courage since it affected current public employees.”

McConnell says Obama has been a “missing person” throughout their talks on entitlement reform over the past year. Instead of forming a bipartisan working relationship with him, as Ronald Reagan did with Tip O’Neill, McConnell’s phone has been cold.

“He has refused to lead,” McConnell says, so he and GOP leaders will propose their own short-term economic legislation, such as extending the Bush tax cuts for a year, as they wait for presidential leadership.

If Obama is interested, McConnell says, he is willing to broker an agreement on tax reform and entitlement reform. “All it takes is some courage from the president,” he says. “We know we need to adjust the formulas for eligibility for entitlement programs to meet the current and projected future makeup of the country, and we need the president to be a part of that.”

“Everybody understands what needs to be done,” McConnell says. “It’s just going to take adult leadership. Scott Walker was able to do it and the people supported him. That should send a message.”