Obama scolds Congress: 'I will not sign another short-sighted spending bill'

(Image credit: Larry Downing-Pool/Getty Images)

published 2 October 2015

President Obama has had just about enough of Congress' short-term spending bills. At a Friday afternoon press conference, Obama said that although he signed a temporary budget bill into law this week, keeping the government funded through Dec. 11, when this deal expires he will "not sign another short-sighted spending bill."

"It's not how we're supposed to operate," Obama said, adding that Friday's middling report on job creation would have been better if "we didn't have to keep dealing with unnecessary crises in Congress every few months." While GOP-driven spending cuts have been an issue in Washington for years, in this particular crisis, a conservative faction of Congress threatened to block any new budget bill unless federal funding was yanked from Planned Parenthood. In the end, Congress passed a stopgap bill to keep the government open.

"We can't cut our way to prosperity," Obama said. "Other countries have tried it and it does not work."