Obama To Hammer GOP For Not Supporting Financial Legislation

President Barack Obama on Wednesday was set to hammer Republicans in a speech in Wisconsin for not supporting legislation overhauling Wall Street a day after Congressional Democrats made a key concession to save the bill from sinking.

Obama was to call out House Republican Leader John Boehner for likening the financial legislation to nuking an ant, saying the Ohio Republican is out of touch with the struggles facing America.

"That's right. He compared the financial crisis to an ant," Obama will say, according to his prepared remarks. He will add, "The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their lives savings."

Boehner had said in an interview with a newspaper earlier in the week that the financial bill was like "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon."

Obama's remarks come as the sweeping legislation nearly collapsed amid a lack of support. Republicans had decried an $18 billion bank tax in the legislation that would cover the cost of expanding oversight of the financial sector. Democrats removed that provision Tuesday.

The fate of the legislation has been thrown into doubt by the passing of West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd, whose death robs Senate Democrats of a crucial vote on the sweeping package. Funeral services planned for Thursday and Friday in Washington and West Virginia are also likely to hamper plans to vote on the package as many lawmakers will likely attend.

Obama is also expected to comment on the state of the economy in general. He is scheduled to repeat earlier comments that the economy is headed in the right direction, but "it's not headed there fast enough."

He will say his administration has been "fighting" for additional measures to speed up the recovery but is facing resistance from the GOP. Democratic lawmakers have said they hope to pass both an extension of federal jobless benefits and of a popular homebuyers' tax credit before Congress breaks for the July 4 recess but aren't sure they have the votes.

Obama's speech comes as a report shows the pace of private-sector jobs growth slowed in June. Private-sector jobs in the U.S. increased by 13,000 in June compared with 57,000 in May, according to a national employment report published by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers.

The ADP survey tallies only private-sector jobs, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics' nonfarm payroll data, to be released Friday, include government workers. Economists expect that report to show that the unemployment rate in June edged up to 9.8% from 9.7%.

-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202.862.9256; jared.favole@dowjones.com

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