Barack Obama Speaks on Rushing Legislation
BARACK OBAMA: …When you rush these budgets that are a foot high and nobody has any idea what’s in them and nobody has read them.
RANDI RHODES: 14 pounds it was!
BARACK OBAMA: Yeah. And it gets rushed through without any clear deliberation or debate then these kinds of things happen. And I think that this is in some ways what happened to the Patriot Act. I mean you remember that there was no real debate about that. It was so quick after 9/11 that it was introduced that people felt very intimidated by the administration.
Facing criticism from both sides of the aisle that he’s pushing too hard and fast on health care reform, President Obama on Wednesday defended his "rush" to get it done and said Congress must take advantage of this rare opportunity.
"The stars are aligned," Obama said in prime-time news conference, and the American people are depending on Congress to reach a compromise promptly. He wants a deal by Congress’ August recess.
"If you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don’t happen. The default position is inertia," the president said, singling out his critics for playing political "games" with health care reform.
Versus, say, playing political "games" with national defense (without which, health care soon becomes moot).
Filed under: Democrats • Politics
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