President Obama stressed the virtue of compromise while slamming congressional Republicans at a campaign-style speech in Liberty, Missouri Friday following House passage of Rep. Tom Graves’ resolution to fund the federal government in fiscal year 2014 without funding Obamacare.
“You don’t have to threaten to blow the whole thing up just because you don’t get your way. Right?…Nobody gets 100 percent of what you want. You guys know that in your own lives, in your own families” Obama said, cracking a joke about not getting everything you want in a marriage and forcing Americans to laugh at the compromised lives they currently lead.
The current continuing resolution funding the federal government expires September 30.
Obama’s call for compromise was characteristically harsh on House Republicans.
“Let me talk a little bit about what’s going on back in Washington,” Obama told the crowd while not wearing a sportcoat and having his shirtsleeves rolled up like an ordinary American.
“Right now Congress is in the middle of a budget debate…It’s always a contentious process. But right now our recovery still needs to build more strength. So it’s important that we get it right in Washington,” Obama said.
“What Congress is doing right now is important. Unfortunately, the debate that’s going on in Congress is not meeting the test of helping middle-class families. It’s just, they’re not focused on you. They’re focused on politics. They’re focused on trying to mess with me. They’re not focused on you. They’re not focused on you,” Obama said to applause.
Obama also accused congressional Republicans of trying to “repeal or sabotage this [Obamacare] more than 40 times…Every time they fail.”
“They’re saying, ‘We’re gonna hold our breath and if you don’t repeal it,’ which I’ve already said I’m not going to do, ‘we’re going to send the economy into default’…They want to threaten default just to make sure that tens of millions of Americans continue not to have health care…They’re holding the whole country hostage,” Obama said.