By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch –
NEW YORK — President Barack Obama on Saturday reiterated his call for an end to partisan gridlock in Washington and urged Congress to pass legislation to prevent insider trading by lawmakers.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama urged the Senate to pass a rule requiring a yes-or-no vote for judicial and public-service nominations after 90 days, saying nominees with bipartisan support are getting held up for political reasons.
“One senator gumming up the works for the whole country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned,” said Obama, referring to Utah Republican Mike Lee, who earlier last week said he would try to block the president’s judicial nominees this year.
The freshman senator made the statement following Obama’s recent recess appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, a new consumer watchdog agency.
“We weren’t sent here to wage perpetual political campaigns against each other,” said Obama, who said both parties engage such tactics.
The president also voiced support for a ban on lawmakers owning stocks in companies that have business before their respective committees, as well as prohibiting those who “bundle” campaign contributions from others for lawmakers from lobbying Congress.
In the Republican reply, Marco Rubio criticized Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, saying the president’s speech to Congress did not tout Obama’s achievements “because there isn’t much.”
And, pointing to the widening gulf between the wealthy and poor, the Florida senator said the best means of tackling the gap was to embrace the nation’s free enterprise system. Obama, Rubio said, was asking that the nation “abandon our economic heritage.”
Rubio’s swipe at the president came just days ahead of the Republican primary in his home state. Rubio has remained neutral in the contest.
