If his Saturday radio address is any guide, President Obama will make the Republican-run U.S. House a major campaign issue.
Obama attacked the GOP House for calling its election year recess without taking action on jobs and other major issues.
“Apparently, some Members of Congress are more worried about their jobs and their paychecks this campaign season than they are about yours,” Obama said.
Obama — running against Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the Nov. 6 election — cited proposals for a “veterans’ jobs corps,” a farm bill, new rules for mortgage re-financing, and a plan to deal with the George W. Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of the year.
The Republicans are “holding tax cuts for 98% of Americans hostage until we pass tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans,” Obama said, adding that “members of Congress should come back in November and do this work.”
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, attribute the gridlock to Obama and the Democratic-run U.S. Senate, which hasn’t produced a budget in three years.
“People should know that the Republican-led House … met its obligations,” said U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., in the Republican radio address.
Sessions, the top GOP member on the Senate Budget Committee, also said: “The Senate Democrat Majority has decided to adjourn through November having utterly failed to meet its most basic obligations. For the last three years, in a time of national crisis, Senate Democrats have deliberately violated the legal requirement to produce a budget plan.”
(USA Today)
