Obama Urges to Focus on Education, Infrastructure Investment in US Budget

US President Barack Obama said that negotiations over the budget should be over legitimate issues like government investments in education, job training, and infrastructure.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The planning of a US budget should be concerned with "legitimate" issues like investment in education or infrastructure, not related to "ideological" issues like abortion, President Barack Obama said Saturday.

"[Negotiations over the budget] should be over legitimate issues like how much do we invest in education, job training, and infrastructure – not unrelated ideological issues like [the abortion provider] Planned Parenthood," Obama said in his weekly address.

Republican representatives in the US Congress are mulling cutting off Planned Parenthood's funding by adding a related measure to the next budget.

On Friday, the US House of Representatives voted in favor of curtailing federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Obama has pledged to veto any government spending bill which would stipulate cutting of funding for the abortion provider.

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who backed the bill, said the legislation was essential amid a series of videos reportedly documenting incidents of botched abortions, and discussions of profiting from fetal organs.