The White House aggressively went after House GOP leader John Boehner on Wednesday over his opposition to the stimulus bill. Jared Bernstein, the top economic adviser to Vice President Biden, singled out Boehner in an official White House blog posting, accusing the Ohio Republican of wanting his constituents out of work.
"John Boehner wants a lot of people to lose their jobs," Bernstein wrote. "We were awfully surprised to hear Rep. Boehner come out for killing jobs en masse in his own state and district by stopping the Recovery Act on last Sunday’s news shows."
Bernstein cited projects in Boehner's district that would be threatened if the administration's signature $787 billion stimulus bill hadn't been passed. Boehner and the House Republicans opposed the legislation.
Boehner shot back: “The people of Butler County are asking, where are the jobs? They know that more government and more taxes aren’t the answer. They know we need to stop Washington Democrats’ job-killing agenda, especially their tax hike on American families and small businesses.”
The blog post perhaps signals a more aggressive tack by the Obama administration against the man who would become Speaker of the House under a Republican majority. Biden's office runs PR and implementation for the stimulus, and Bernstein is the vice president's top man on economics.
"So when it comes right down to, is Rep. Boehner really ready to tell Ohioans they’d [be] better off if we stopped the Recovery Act?" Bernstein wrote.
