Obama Picking Up Where He Left Off

After returning from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Politico's Matt Negrin reports that President Barack Obama is picking up where he left off: blaming Republicans.

“Unfortunately, this bill has been languishing in the Senate for months, held up by a partisan minority that won’t even allow it to go to a vote,” he said, speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden. “That makes no sense.”

Pounding the lectern, Obama continued: “Holding this bill hostage is directly detrimental to our economic growth. So I ask Senate Republicans to drop the blockade.”

Obama's latest accusations against the so-called "Party of No" continue to fly in the face of the fact the Democrats hold majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate.  The bottom line is that if Obama's own party thought his bill was such a great idea, they would be able to pass it with ease.  Still, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fired back, arguing that he and fellow Republicans would not relent because the bill amounts to a tax increase. Rather than “growing jobs as promised,” McConnell said, Democrats’ economic policies have done more harm than good.

The president's remarks today came just one week after House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called for Obama to fire Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other members of the president's economic team. "We do not have the luxury of waiting months for the president to pick scapegoats for his failing 'stimulus' policies," Boehner told business leaders in Cleveland last week.

Keep an ear out on Tuesday as Boehner is expected to again go toe-to-toe with Obama over the president's war strategy and past opposition of the successful Iraq troop surge.