WASHINGTON (AP) – “That wasn’t me,” President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.
Here’s President Obama’s favorite TV game show…
It actually was him – and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years – who shaped a budget so out of balance.
And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.
Obama met citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school Wednesday in advance of his prime-time news conference. Both forums were a platform to review his progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.
At various times, he brought an air of certainty to ambitions that are far from cast in stone.
His assertion that his proposed budget “will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term” is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating.
He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.
A look at some of his claims Wednesday:
OBAMA: “Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit…. That wasn’t me. Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that in the middle of the biggest crisis, financial crisis, since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps. So you’ve got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks. Those are one-time charges, and they’re big, and they’ll make our deficits go up over the next two years.” – in Missouri. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–Ah, Barack…Who was the Junior Senator from Illinois who voted for every single one of Bush’s spending measures? And whose only regret was that the hated Republicans weren’t spending enough on such idiotic programs like the prescription drug program for seniors.
Pointing the blame at GW Bush is going to get old someday soon, especially since you supported his policies (at least you voted for them), and now you’ve outspent him 4-1.
No Mr. President, it’s you who now own this economy–it’s your mess because instead of combating the irresponsible spending of Bush like you said you would, you have decided to spend even more irresponsibly–much, much, much more irresponsibly than your predecessor.
And then you try to pass off the fantasy that your budget will cut the deficit in half by the end of your first (and hopefully only) term in office–that even has democratic number crunchers scratching their heads in amazement.
