Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Chalk it up to nerves induced by the stress of the first day on the job, or to plain old idiocy, but Obama's new press secretary Jay Carney completely blew it yesterday when he declared that Obama's new budget would absolutely not be adding more to the national debt, which -- in case you'd forgotten -- we inherited from Bush. Here's an excerpt of the exhange between ABC's Jake Tapper and Obama's Jay Carney:
TAPPER: If I borrow money from you to pay off the interest for the debt I owe to Geoff, am I not adding to my debt?...The president seems to think that that borrowing money to pay the interest on the debt is not adding to the debt. I don't understand that math.
CARNEY: What the president made clear is that we need to get to a place -- and his budget absolutely does this -- where we are no longer spending more than we're taking in....But the first important step to dealing with this issue is getting your regular spending and income in balance so that you are no longer adding to the problem.
The interest is something we have to deal with, and interest payments are a major portion of our long-term debt. It's a problem that we need to -- that we need to address. But the -- but it -- look, it is not an inconsequential deal to propose a budget that cuts as substantially as it does in targeted areas so that the federal government lives within its means in order to be able to continue to invest in the future, because you have to have economic growth, you have to have job creation, if we're going to address this overall long-term problem.
TAPPER: I assume when the president calls for an adult conversation, he means that conversation should be forthright and politicians shouldn't be hiding behind cute language such as "We will not be adding more to the national debt," even if hundreds of billions of dollars are being added to the national debt in interest -- paid on debt that President Obama helped, himself, create.
CARNEY: Well, the debt is -- has been created over a number of years, as you know...I also remind you that we inherited, when this administration came into office, this president came into office, an enormous debt that had been piled up in the previous eight years. And that is part of the problem. And the interest that you're talking about is on that debt as well...
TAPPER: Just to button this, you think that, "We will not be adding more to the national debt," is a statement that stands to scrutiny?
CARNEY: Absolutely, absolutely.
(emphasis added)
The other day in response to Bill's post on liars and lying, many seemed to agree with the notion that lying is morally acceptable only if the recipient of the lie is not entitled to the truth. That the Obama administration would so plainly engage in deceit speaks volumes of what Obama must think about the American people.
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Soooo, after five years, we no longer borrow money today, to pay for yetsreday's expenses. Except for the money we borrow then, to pay the interest on yesterday's expenses.
I'm going to try this on my banker!
Oct '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Just to observe the deceit is amazing, Obama is short has simply dismissed the people as an annoyance....Some is some twisted amusement in seeing this unfold.
Save it has very real outcomes...
Jan '11
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
You know, back before the mid-terms when Obama, Kerry et al. were describing everyone who disagreed with the administration as "stupid," I thought they were just indulging in the usual liberal ad hominem attacks.
I was wrong.
Obama really does think we're stupid.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
CARNEY: What the president made clear......
See? We the People just don't get it.
Oct '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Jimmy Carter: CARNEY: What the president made clear......
See? We the People just don't get it. · Feb 17 at 3:24pm
You know what that sounds like?
"Just because the president doesn't know what he's talking about is no reason to come after me!".
Oct '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Has it occurred to anyone that when Obama speaks it comes across that he is speaking over your heads... That is and of itself is offensive...And in an odd way it is totally intentional...
Dec '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Chris Bogdan
Jimmy Carter: CARNEY: What the president made clear......
See? We the People just don't get it. · Feb 17 at 3:24pm
You know what that sounds like?
"Just because the president doesn't know what he's talking about is no reason to come after me!". · Feb 17 at 3:38pm
Absolutely!
You have to feel for Carney, whose job depends on his parroting whatever line the Administration is pushing. He can only do so much to make that line appear to square with reality.
But the great thing is that, while Tapper can't say to Obama's face, "I believe you are lying," he can interrogate Carney as proxy for Obama and say, "I believe that what your boss told you to say is a pack of lies."
May '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
These are desperate, vile people.
May '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
This seems to be a form of excuse-making. We're not going to add another penny to the debt that we don't add for reasons beyond our control.
It's similar to "jobs saved or created".
May '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
I don't make enough money to afford a house in the Bay Area. I'm going buy a house without taking on any additional debt.
"But Mark, don't you have to take out a mortgage to buy a house?"
Yes, but that is only because of the rate of salary I inherited from the previous 8 years. So I am going to buy a house without taking on any additional debt.
Sep '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Please celebrate Jake Tapper
May '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Can massive inflation of the national debt be a plan to provoke a constitutional crisis so that the "Progressive Brotherhood" can seize power?
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Every time I set out to read Catch 22, I stopped 30 or so pages in because I simply couldn't bear to read exchanges like the one between Tapper and Carney without losing my grip on sanity. I wish I could just as easily shelf the Obama administration.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
I do not even watch TV and just from retweets on Twitter during the aftermath of the Tucson attack, Jake was not taking any guff from tweeters mad at him for not jumping on the lynch Palin bandwagon, I was impressed. How on earth does a man who demonstrates an understanding of journalism as a trade every single day of his life end up in the land of news reader's? It's a pity that he is wasted on a medium as informationally diffuse as broadcast television. He is a smart and professional tweeter, and one can only hope that there is some substantive blogging and pod casting in his future.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
George Orwell, phone your office.
The brazen dishonesty is grotesque. Can't we just ship this guy off with a hammer and some nails to Habitat for Humanity and give the American people an early parole on their (our) sentence for electing the cast from the Dunciad?
Re: Obama Administration: New Budget Will Not Add Another Cent to the National Debt
Absolutely, Patrick. One of the worst decisions in recent broadcast history was ABC's misfire in giving "This Week" over to the incomprehensible Christiane Amanpour, who runs the show as if it's only meant to be screened at international departure gates in airports throughout the world. Tapper was a fine interim host prior to her assumption of the duties.
Though both came from partisan Democratic backgrounds, Tim Russert and (to a lesser extent) George Stephanopoulos were both aggressive, even-handed hosts. David Gregory and Amanpour are poor substitutes, leaving only Fox's Chris Wallace remotely watchable. Tapper's selection would have gone a long way towards ameliorating that trend. That having failed to materialize, I count myself deeply thankful for his presence in the briefing room.