Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) continued his verbal onslaught against President Barack Obama's bus tour on Tuesday, blasting the three-day swing through North Carolina and Virginia as inappropriate.
"Never do I believe any of us have seen the kind of activity that the president has engaged in, and all of it being charged to the taxpayers of America," McCain said on the Senate floor, suggesting that the president was campaigning for his reelection in key swing states under the guise of promoting his jobs plan. "That's wrong. That's the wrong thing to do."
"According to recent reports, the president's campaign has raised record amounts of money already," McCain continued. "The campaign should be paying for this North Carolina trip of his. And I don't begrudge him beating up on us and criticizing us and making all kinds of allegations about not understanding his 'stimulus two' package, which we understand very well is more of the same. But at least this campaign should be paying for this kind of campaigning."
Obama's reelection campaign pulled in a total of $70.1 million over the past three months, according to third quarter fundraising reports.
At a speech in North Carolina on Monday, Obama took direct aim at congressional Republicans, telling the crowd that it was possible that they "couldn't understand the whole" jobs plan all at once.
"So we're going to break it up into bite-size pieces," Obama told the audience.
Senate Democrats have decided to bring forth as their first vote a proposal that would provide $35 billion for state and local governments to rehire teachers, police and firefighters.
McCain's latest comments build off of similar ones he made Monday, in which he also accused Obama of campaigning using taxpayer dollars and of traveling in an ugly bus while doing it.
"I must say again I have never seen an uglier bus than a Canadian one," McCain said on the Senate floor. "He is traveling around on a Canadian bus touting American jobs."