President Obama traveled to Alabama Thursday to give Republicans rare praise for approving a bill reforming how Medicare pays doctors before slamming the broader GOP funding blueprint that passed the House.
Obama said he called both Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to congratulate them on the “doc fix,” which changes the way Medicare calculates doctors’ payments. The measure is soon expected to pass the Senate.
Obama championed proposed new rules restricting payday lenders in Birmingham Thursday, and he framed the compromise on Medicare payments as just a sliver of a positive development.
“So, that was the good news,” Obama told the friendly audience of the “doc fix.” “The bad news is the Republicans in Congress unveiled their budget. And it represents the opposite of middle-class economics.”
Obama has traveled to a handful of red-leaning states in recent weeks, including South Carolina, Idaho and Kansas, hoping to win some converts to his progressive message in conservative bastions.
The president made clear Thursday that he would veto the Republican funding plan if it ever reached his desk.
“It begs the question: What problems are they actually trying to solve?” Obama said of the blueprint. “Now, before the ink was even dry on their budget full of tax cuts for folks at the top, they rolled out their next economic plan – wait for it – another huge tax cut for folks at the top.”
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unveiled a proposal Thursday that would require lenders either to determine beforehand that their customers weren’t taking on overly burdensome debt or to comply with affordability rules for existing customers.
The president highlighted those rules to hit Republicans on financial reforms.
“It makes no sense that the Republican budget would make it harder for the CFPB to do its job, and allow Wall Street to go back to the kind of recklessness that led to the crisis in the first place,” Obama said. “If Republicans in Congress send me a bill that unravels Wall Street reform, I will veto it.”
