House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday called on President Obama’s campaign to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of a campaign-style trip to battleground states, accusing the White House of a “pathetic” attempt to stir up an election-year fight over student loans.
“This week the president traveled across the country on taxpayers’ dime at a cost of $179,000 an hour insisting the Congress fix a problem that we were already working on. Frankly, I think this is beneath the dignity of the White House,” Boehner said at the outset of his weekly Capitol press briefing.
Obama this week traveled to college campuses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado — three battleground states — and held large rallies to urge Congress to prevent a looming hike in student loan interest rates. The trip was billed as official White House business, but Boehner said that claim “didn’t pass the straight-face test” and that Obama was creating “a fake fight” purely for political purposes.
Still, House Republicans scrambled to respond to the president by rushing their own legislation preventing the interest rate increase to the floor for a Friday vote.
For more on Boehner's remarks, click here.
