The Hill News

Republican leaders on Wednesday sharply rebuked President Obama and accused him of using what was billed as a major speech on fiscal policy to launch campaign attacks against the GOP.

Top House members angrily reacted to Obama's speech, which called for a series of reforms to address the long-term debt, but which also took to task Republican spending proposals, particularly the 2012 budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

"I don't know about my colleagues, but I asked myself, 'And I missed lunch for this?'" said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas), the fourth-ranking GOP lawmaker and chairman of the House Republican conference, in a press conference Wednesday afternoon. "This was a speech designed for the president to win reelection."

Hensarling was joined at the press conference by several other top House Republicans, who were invited Wednesday morning for a briefing at the White House ahead of Obama's speech, and other Republicans who attended the address.!  

Obama used the speech to take a shot at the Republican budget plan that is set for a vote later this week and was authored by Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The president also sought to tie potential GOP presidential candidates to the plan, arguing it would radically cut spending and reshape entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. 

"One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates," Obama said of the Ryan plan. 

"What we heard was not fiscal leadership ... what we heard today was a political broadside from our campaigner-in-chief," said Ryan, who suggested the launch of Obama's reelection campaign last week was meant to coincide in part with the release of the GOP's budget.

The president criticized those who would take issue with his own plan by saying it would raise taxes â€" as many Republicans have charged â€" or was not serious about cutting spending.

"Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy, anxiety â€" it's not hope. It's not change," Ryan said, mocking Obama's 2008 campaign themes. "It's partisanship."