“Our message to the United States Senate is real simple: The American people don’t want the government shut down and they don’t want Obamacare.”
Friday’s vote was Step One in the GOP crusade to undermine the health law. Step Two comes next week, when House leaders hope to advance a separate measure that will demand a one-year delay in the law’s implementation in exchange for an agreement to avoid a first-ever default on the nation’s debts sometime next month.
Obama responded with an uncharacteristically angry speech in which he accused Republicans of “trying to mess with me” and “holding the economy hostage.”
“They’re focused on politics. They’re focused on trying to mess with me. They’re not focused on you,” he told a friendly crowd of about 1,000 autoworkers and their families at a truck manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Kansas City, Mo.
Three times, Obama used the phrase “deadbeat nation” to condemn Republican brinkmanship on the debt limit.
