U.S. President Barack Obama is criticizing Republicans in Congress for fighting to undo Wall Street reforms and consumer protections that he says are aimed at preventing another financial crisis.
The president said in his weekly address Saturday that Republican lawmakers are "waging an all-out battle to delay, defund and dismantle" the new rules.
Republicans argue that Wall Street reform has hurt the U.S. economic recovery and killed jobs by making it more difficult for banks to lend and more costly for companies to do business.
But Obama highlighted the nation's new independent consumer watchdog as an example of the good the Dodd-Frank reform act has done. Obama said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's sole job is to help Americans make informed financial decisions and protect them from anyone who tries to take advantage of them, including the companies that determine their credit scores.
Watch President Obama's weekly address:
In the Republican address Saturday, Missouri congressional candidate Ann Wagner criticized Obama's economic policies, saying they are "making things worse." She promoted the president's Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, for president and called for repealing Obama's health care law and fixing the U.S. tax code, which she referred to as a "72,000-page monstrosity." Wagner said Obama promised the nation change, but all it has gotten is "more spending, more red tape" and "more debt and decline."