Washington: US President Barack Obama has hit the road on a bus tour of three key swing states in rural America in a bid to connect with masses on economic issues, including unemployment, a move seen as the launch of his 2012 election campaign against an emboldened Republican party.
Kicking off the three-day midwestern bus tour of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, Obama on Monday hit strongly at the Republican leaders, who have the majority in the House of Representatives, and accused them of blocking economic reforms and development of the country.
He warned Republican lawmakers — who have been slamming his economic policies — that they will be defeated if they continue to obstruct his policies.
Amid an economic meltdown that has led to high rates of unemployment in the country, Obama said that he would send a jobs package to Congress next, ask lawmakers to pass it and campaign against them if they refuse.
“I want you to help hold all of us accountable, me included. I am enlisting you in this fight, because if you’re making your voices heard, if you’re letting people know that enough is enough, it is time to move forward, it is time for us to win the future — if your voices are heard, then sooner or later these guys have to start paying attention,” Obama said in his remarks at a town hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa.
“If they don’t start paying attention then they’re not going to be in office and we will have a new Congress in there that will start paying attention to what is going on all across America,” the President said.
Republicans made fun of Obama’s trip as a “Debt-End Bus Tour” and ran radio and Internet ads against him. In a conference call with reporters, Iowa’s Republican Chairman Matt Strawn said the trip “has all of the trappings of a campaign tour.”
“The only difference between the GOP presidential campaign buses criss-crossing our state this summer and the President’s bus is that the taxpayers are footing the bill for the President’s campaign swing,” Strawn said.
On the first day of his bus tour, Obama started with Minnesota and ended up in Iowa.
During the day that marked his first bus tour since taking office in January 2009, the President held two town hall meetings.
“Well, if you can do the right thing, then folks in Washington have to do the right thing. If we do that, there is not a problem that we face that we cannot solve. Think about it. Our biggest challenge right now is putting people to work. (UNI)