Obama: Washington ‘Has to Change’ after Shutdown and Debt Ceiling Crisis

Photo Credit: The Guardian Barack Obama used his weekly address on Saturday to repeat his appeal for greater co-operation between political parties in Washington DC, in the aftermath of the government shutdown and national debt crisis. The president also restated his claim that despite the Republican climbdown that cleared the way for a resolution of the crisis on Wednesday night, “no winners” had emerged from the political drama of the last two weeks.

Later in the day the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the presumed frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, echoed Obama’s words in a speech delivered in support of Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for the governorship of Virginia. Clinton said the US people were looking for a return to “common sense and common ground” and would look to the Virginia race – McAuliffe faces the Republican Ken Cuccinelli – for a turn away from “divisive politics”.

It was Clinton’s first public campaign event since leaving the State Department in February, although she is also helping Bill de Blasio, a former aide, in his attempt to be elected mayor of New York.

On Thursday, Obama used remarks to the press to appeal for Republican co-operation over issues such as the federal budget, immigration reform and a farm bill. Discussions over the budget, involving the Republican representative Paul Ryan and the Democratic senator Patty Murray, have begun. However, optimism over bipartisan co-operation is in short supply.

On Saturday, in his address, Obama said: “There’s been a lot of discussion lately of the politics of this shutdown. But the truth is, there were no winners in this. At a time when our economy needs more growth and more jobs, the manufactured crises of these last few weeks actually harmed jobs and growth.

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