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I hit this 60 Minutes quote two days ago in yesterday’s OOTD, but it’s worth revisiting in the form of Glenn Kessler’s fact check at the Washington Post. Kessler misses one of the biggest problems with Barack Obama’s response to Steve Kroft’s question, which was about national debt, and Obama responded by talking about deficits — two different issues, although related. I’ll put the question and the longer answer provided by Kessler together, emphases mine:
KROFT: The national debt has gone up sixty percent in — in the four years that you’ve been in office.
OBAMA: Well, first — first of all, Steve, I think it’s important to understand the context here. When I came into office, I inherited the biggest deficit in our history. And over the last four years, the deficit has gone up, but ninety percent of that is as a consequence of two wars that weren’t paid for, as a consequence of tax cuts that weren’t paid for, a prescription drug plan that was not paid for, and then the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Now we took some emergency actions, but that accounts for about 10 percent of this increase in the deficit, and we have actually seen the federal government grow at a slower pace than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower, in fact, substantially lower than the federal government grew under either Ronald Reagan or George Bush.
Obama's supporters make it sound like we were running $1T deficits throughout Bush's term, when in reality it was normally running around the $500B mark. In the last year of Bush's term, the deficit skyrocketed due to the effects of and actions taken by Bush's administration in reaction to the recession.
So they compare Obama's annual spending deficit to Bush's last year where spending was increased to manage the recession and act like Obama's spending is reasonable by comparison. "He increased spending less than any other President" is a lie when you're comparing it to that last year of Bush's Presidency.
WTF does this crap end, it is getting sickening, boring, and only too predictible. I have a problem with a man, that cannot accept when he is wrong, no respect for him.
If you can accept credit very willingly, you as a President, should also admit when you are wrong, and please stop making excuses and blaming others, for your own stupidity.
Can't ever accuse the man of emulating Harry "The Buck Stops Here" Truman, can you? I hate when people in leadership positions want the power but don't take responsibility.
Romney campaign really needs to get on the ball and pound home the points provided by the OP. The debt is a huge issue that people can easily understand. Obama repeatedly confuses debt and deficit (he did it on Letterman too). I don't think he has the first clue on the topic, and he talks about it like somebody briefed him while he was thinking of his next golf game.
He also gets the causes way wrong, in the meme of "unfunded wars" and Bush tax cuts." He does get one thing right--the deficits under his watch were made worse by the recession, which caused a drop in tax revenue. He's flat wrong about everything else. The Iraq war was only about 3% of spending while it lasted, so it's almost negligable as far as the debt is concerned. Obama himself supported Afghanistan from the start, so in effect he jabs himself with that criticism. The Bush tax cuts were rate cuts--overall revenue remained roughly flat under Bush.
C'mon Romney people--how about a Ross Perot-style infomercial? If you would just do this, you would win the election.
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