Obama To Republicans In Open Mic: You Think We're Stupid?
Tell us how you really feel, Mr. President.
The day the House passed the budget deal that promised to cut $38 in government spending through the remainder of the fiscal year, President Barack Obama told a group of supporters that Republicans tried to “sneak” an anti-healthcare reform agenda into the budget, according to CBS.
In what may be remembered as the biggest accidental reply-all of the budget debate, Obama told campaign donors about the Republicans’ attempts to block funding for the big health care reform laws passed last year:
"I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'"
CBS correspondent Mark Knoller first heard the president’s remarks in an audio feed from the gathering. The president made the comments after most reporters had left the room. Republican moves on health care included a rider that would have gutted funding for Planned Parenthood. Republicans and Democrats agreed to take that provision out of the bill, an 11th-hour compromise that averted a government shutdown.
The health care debate will be a major component of budget talks in the coming months. The budget plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for the next fiscal year proposes significant steps toward defunding the health care reform laws and, among other things, turns Medicare into what critics are calling essentially a voucher program.
Politico reports on the likely demise of the Ryan budget:
The spending plan is expected to pass [the House] — it doesn’t stand a chance in the Senate — but Democrats are already making it a political issue. President Barack Obama used Ryan’s budget as a foil publicly earlier this week and in a closed campaign appearance in Chicago Thursday evening.