Obama to tea party Republicans: shut down, debt ceiling "spectacle" "encouraged our enemies"

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama slammed—not by name on Thursday morning—the tea party Republicans who triggered the partial federal government shutdown and led the nation to the brink of default.

The federal government fully reopened on Thursday and Obama at the White House lectured the lawmakers who triggered the twin crises.

“At a moment when our economic recovery demands more jobs, more momentum, we’ve got yet another self-inflicted crisis that set our economy back,” Obama said.

“And for what? There was no economic rationale for all of this. Over the past four years, our economy has been growing, our businesses have been creating jobs, and our deficits have been in half. We hear some members who pushed for the shutdown say they were doing it to save the American economy.

“But nothing has done more to undermine our economy these past three years than the kind of tactics that create these manufactured crises.”

Obama called on the House to pass an immigration bill by the end of the year. The Senate already approved a comprehensive reform package.

Again, not by name, Obama—who seemed irritated—took on the lawmakers who “who pushed for the shutdown and threatened default” who claimed “their actions were needed to get America back on the right track, to make sure we’re strong.

“But probably nothing has done more damage to America’s credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle that we’ve seen these past several weeks. It’s encouraged our enemies, it’s emboldened our competitors, and it’s depressed our friends, who look to us for steady leadership.

“Now the good news is, we’ll bounce back from this. We always do. America’s the bedrock of the global economy for a reason. We are the indispensable nation that the rest of the world looks to as the safest and most reliable place to invest, something that’s made it easier for generations of Americans to invest in their own futures.”