No 8 Budget Blame and Buster

Call for Peace   

In the Name of Allah,

the Most Gracious, and the Most Merciful

US Politics

Critical Analysis

By Media

Rachel Maddow, Keith and Chris Mathew

Source

Video Clip
www.msnbc.com

Budget, Blame and Bluster

Mr President! As below is the transcript of the video clip critical Analysis by the media.

Keith:Continuing with our special coverage of the President and the Republican congressmen, the last thing the President said before question from Congressman Paul Ryan today was the issue of debt deficit area quite there has been tendency for the inconsistent statements. Congressman Ryan has operated in that area willing to push over his own party and then President Bush to exhibit some fiscal discipline when it came to spending but not shy about having massive tax cuts; even the Bush tax cuts that even John McCain once bogged at should be extended. Here is his entire exchange with President Obama.

Question by Congressman Ryan

CONGRESSMAN RYAN:  Thank you.  Mr. President, first off, thanks for agreeing to accept our invitation here.  It is a real pleasure and honor to have you with us here today.

THE PRESIDENT:

Good to see you.  Is this your crew right here, by the way?

CONGRESSMAN RYAN:  It is.  This is my daughter Liza, my son Charlie and Sam, and this is my wife Janna.

THE PRESIDENT:  Hey, guys.

Question continued and President was listening

CONGRESSMAN RYAN:  Say hi, everybody.  (Laughter)  I serve as a ranking member of the budget committee, so I’m going to talk a little budget if you don’t mind.  The spending bills that you’ve signed into law, the domestic discretionary spending has been increased by 84 percent.  You now want to freeze spending at this elevated beginning next year.  This means that total spending in your budget would grow at 3/100ths of 1 percent less than otherwise.  I would simply submit that we could do more and start now.

You’ve also said that you want to take a scalpel to the budget and go through it line by line.  We want to give you that scalpel.  I have a proposal with my home state senator, Russ Feingold, bipartisan proposal, to create a constitutional version of the line-item veto.  (Applause)  Problem is, we can’t even get a vote on the proposal.

So my question is, why not start freezing spending now, and would you support a line-item veto in helping us get a vote on it in the House?

President Answers Question

THE PRESIDENT:  Let me respond to the two specific questions, but I want to just push back a little bit on the underlying premise about us increasing spending by 84 percent.

Now, look, I talked to Peter Orszag right before I came here, because I suspected I’d be hearing this — I’d be hearing this argument.  The fact of the matter is, is that most of the increases in this year’s budget, this past year’s budget, were not as a consequence of policies that we initiated but instead were built in as a consequence of the automatic stabilizers
that kick in because of this enormous recession.

So the increase in the budget for this past year was actually predicted before I was even sworn into office and had initiated any policies.  Whoever was in there, Paul — and I don’t think you’ll dispute that — whoever was in there would have seen those same increases because of; on the one hand, huge drops in revenue, but at the same time people were hurting and needed help.  And a lot of these things happened automatically.

Now, the reason that I’m not proposing the discretionary freeze take into effect this year — we prepared a budget for 2010, it’s now going forward — is, again, I am just listening to the consensus among people who know the economy best.  And what they will say is that if you either increase taxes or significantly lowered spending when the economy remains somewhat fragile, that that would have a
dissimulative effect and potentially you’d see a lot of folks losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs.  That would be a mistake when the economy has not fully taken off.  That’s why I’ve proposed to do it for the next fiscal year.  So that’s point number two.

With respect to the line-item veto, I actually — I think there’s not a President out there that wouldn’t love to have it.  And I think that this is an area where we can have a serious conversation.  I know it is a bipartisan proposal by you and Russ Feingold.  I don’t like being held up with big bills that have stuff in them that are wasteful but I’ve got to sign because it’s a defense authorization bill and I’ve got to make sure that our troops are getting the funding that they need.

I will tell you, I would love for Congress itself to show discipline on both sides of the aisle.  I think one thing that you have to acknowledge, Paul, because you study this stuff and take it pretty seriously, that the earmarks problem is not unique to one party and you end up getting a lot of pushback when you start going after specific projects of any one of you in your districts, because wasteful spending is usually spent somehow outside of your district.  Have you noticed that?  The spending in your district tends to seem pretty sensible.

So I would love to see more restraint within Congress.  I’d like to work on the earmarks reforms that I mentioned in terms of putting earmarks online, because I think sunshine is the best disinfectant.  But I am willing to have a serious conversation on the line-item veto issue.

Question from Ryan

CONGRESSMAN RYAN:  I’d like to walk you through that, because we have a version we think is constitutional.

THE PRESIDENT:  Let me take a look at it.

CONGRESSMAN RYAN:  I would simply say that automatic stabilizer spending is mandatory spending.  The discretionary spending, the bills that Congress signs that you sign into law that has increased 84 percent.

President Finishes Answer

THE PRESIDENT:  We’ll have a longer debate on the budget numbers, all right?

Keith:Rachel! You and I in October and Chris have recently have had this experience that I think the people, certainly the Republicans did today, and I think people are watching and getting this what it is like to be in the room with the President of United States you pick up your topic and or I left wandering whether or not you know as much that he does.

Rachel:So much for that he always needs a teleprompter to attack. I mean this is unscripted, no notes, no teleprompter no nothing you brought an issue here Congressman who us ranking member of Budget Committee let me tell you 400,000 things about it and invite him to the discussion with me later. I mean this is actually very Clintonian I thought in many respects.

Keith:But Chris! (Inaudible) the question what does the President ever give the speeches? Why does not he say it may be minutes over and remarks say any question and then just because a lot of people get good speeches but this thing we can see on almost any topic you can throw at this manis singular at least this year or last few year I think.

Chris:

• Keith! Bill Clinton was awful good at this even when it is in 1992 Hampshire in the round that he had to even when he was challenged on his draft letter incredibly personal stuff and he was equally good at this.

• I think this President is sort of mix of charm and poetry and pros, he is pretty improvised because he can be wittyat the same time. I don’t think Bill Clinton was witty so he can be witty, smart, informed poetic and also very smart about the numbers at the same time.

• However on that point. I think he just pulled the fast foot on Ryan because Ryan was talking about part of the Budget which is controllable and the President switched over to the part which is not controllable and employment statistics and the unemployment benefit and things like that. I think he pulled faster on this guy and he is trying to challenge him.

• There you have shown some salesmanship rather than exactly addressing the point. I think that guy Ryan is pretty smart. I think he did it asking good question why has spending going on your watch and now you are freezing it. Of course this morning of course this is the time to spend more money.

• We are in deep recession right now. Next year may be the time to begin to show some restraints. By the way there is real contradiction in what Mr Pence said just a few moments ago on this tape when he came out with big stimulating tax cuts, cut tax to stimulate the economy and then he came for a freeze now on spending. He was going for the depressing fiscal policy. What does he want?

• Does he seem like want to stimulate the economy or depress it. It seems like he wants to do whatever sounds good politically in the moment because obviously:

• when he wants tax cuts, you want to stimulate.

• If you want money, you want to stimulate,

• If you want freeze spending you want to shut it down.

Why does the Republican want to shut down this recovery could it be they not really are saddened by news of high unemployment this year?

Rachel: I would say one just pure politics moment here. Just keep behind the curtain, when the President say that you know I went to talk with Peter Orszag my head of the Management Budget before I came here because I suspected I be hearing this. That gives you some window into what kind of fightthe President was expecting to have, looking to have and the degree to which he was witting too, so that he could win.

Keith:Your next questionnaire Congressman from Utah who asked the President what he viewed at what all the promises Mr Obama have made that not lived up to and reply of the President switched tax. First he offered the salient fact that contradicted the President then he concededsome part of the spirit, the question was correct.

Mr President! No doubt this gives you and your team ammunition to win back the support of Democrat, Republican and Tea Party supporters.

May Allah be with you.

Wa’Assalam

[May Allah Bless you]

PS:

Americans

And

People all over the world!

Please express your remarks on the following email:

Email:    cfpcommentsmidterm@gmail.com

                             Password:    democrats