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Obama calls for Congress to pass budget, avoid shutdown

by Bradford Richardson - 09/05/15 6:00 AM ET

As Congress prepares to return for the fall session, President Obama is calling on lawmakers to pass a budget and avoid another government shutdown.

“At a time when the global economy faces headwinds and America’s economy is a relative bright spot in the world, a shutdown of our government would be wildly irresponsible,” Obama said in his weekly address Saturday. “It would be an unforced error that saps the momentum we’ve worked so hard to build.”

{mosads}“Plain and simple, a shutdown would hurt working Americans,” he added.

Obama warned Congress he would veto a budget that does not sufficiently bolster the middle class.

“If Congress wants to support working Americans and strengthen our middle class, they can pass a budget that invests in, not makes cuts to, the middle class,” he said. “If they pass a budget with shortsighted sequester cuts that harm our military and our economy, I’ll veto it.”

The president also marked the Labor Day holiday by highlighting a new jobs report that shows the unemployment rate at 5.1 percent, the lowest since April 2008.

“On Friday, we found out that the economy created another 173,000 jobs in August,” Obama said. “Over the past five and a half years, our businesses have created 13.1 million new jobs in total – the longest streak of job creation on record.”

In addition to deliberating over a new budget, lawmakers will debate the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran after they return from recess Sept. 8.

Tags Barack Obama