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Obama To Boehner: 'Stop This Farce' And End Shutdown

Jeremy Fuster |
October 3, 2013 | 10:25 a.m. PDT

Executive Producer

 

Screenshot, NBC News
Screenshot, NBC News
President Obama demanded that House Republicans end the government shutdown immediately and "stop this farce" during a speech on Thursday in Rockville, Maryland. Obama used the speech to highlight the damage that an extended shutdown will do to Americans and demand that Speaker John Boehner put a funding bill to a vote.

"The American people elected their representatives to make their lives easier, not harder," Obama said. "There's one way out of this reckless and damaging Republican shutdown: Congress has to pass a budget that funds our government with no partisan strings attached."

Obama made the speech at M. Luis Construction, a company that regularly receives contracts from the government for public road construction and repairs and has been able to grow quickly by thanks to low interest rates that allow them to borrow cheaply, according to the AP.

SEE ALSO | Shutdown May End Welfare For 9 Million Americans

According to the Huffington Post, at least 20 House Republicans are willing to vote for a funding bill without any conditions, which combined with a unanimous approval from Democrats would allow the bill to pass and for the shutdown to end. But Speaker Boehner has refused to call a vote to the House floor, something that Obama harshly criticized in his speech:

"What you [Americans] get is our intelligence professionals being back on the job. What you get is our medical researchers back on the job. What you get are little kids back in Head Start. ...

That's what you get. That's what you should be asking for. Take a vote, stop this farce and end the shutdown right now. If you're being disrespected it's because of that attitude that you've got that you deserve to get something for doing your job."

SEE ALSO | NT's Government Shutdown Infographic

Obama also attacked Boehner and other leading Republicans for using the shutdown as a way to force him and other Democrats to agree to "a long laundry list [with] all of the things that [Republicans] want that they can't get passed on their own." Obama also warned that if Congress can't send him an approved funding bill and raise the debt ceiling by Oct. 17, the United States will be forced to default on its debts, resulting in a dropped credit rating, delays of Social Security checks and disability benefits, and put America "back into a bad recession."

The speech comes less than an hour after the U.S. Treasury Department issued a report confirming Obama's warning, saying that a default will result in a recession worse than the one in 2008. 

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