http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/10/obama-places-blame-on-boehner-house-gop-174712.html?hp=l1Obama places blame on Boehner
By JENNIFER EPSTEIN |
10/9/13 5:41 PM EDT
President Obama kept up his efforts to place blame for the government shutdown on House Republicans, on Wednesday calling the lapse of funding a "completely unnecessary" situation.
"The reason we're where we are right now is because Speaker [John] Boehner, the House Republicans, thought that they could get leverage in budget negotiations or defund the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, by taking us to the brink," Obama said in an interview with WTVR, the CBS affiliate in Richmond, Va. The interview was one of four he did Wednesday as he continued to try to frame the shutdown standoff and the debate over raising the debt ceiling.
"In a normal negotiation you'd sit there and you'd say okay, this is what you want, this is what I want -- nobody's going to get 100 percent of what they want," he said. "What Mr. Boehner's essentially said is, you know, unless I get what I want completely, then, I'm not going to reopen the government. Well, I don't understand, and I don't think most Americans understand why do you need to shut down the government in order to have a negotiation?"
