Obama: Tea-party GOP blocking U.S. recovery

 

A day after clashing with a tea party activist, President Obama Tuesday told crowds here that it was “a faction in Congress” that was to blame for blocking economic progress.

At a rural jobs forum, Mr. Obama ticked off a list of pending bills that he said would create jobs.

“The only thing that’s preventing us from passing the bills I just mentioned is the refusal of a faction in Congress to put country ahead of party,” the president said in a thinly veiled reference to House Republicans backed by the tea party. “That has to stop.”

At a town-hall meeting Monday night in Decorah, Iowa, Mr. Obama was confronted by Ryan Rhodes, a leader of the tea party in this state. Mr. Rhodes told the president that his calls for civility were meaningless while Democrats such as Vice President Joseph R. Biden have referred to tea party members as “terrorists.”

The president said he agreed with Mr. Rhodes that “everybody needs to try to tone down the rhetoric.”

 Read More at The Washington Times  By Dave Boyer, The Washington Times