Hensarling destroys Obama in deficit kerfuffle
When Obama addressed the GOP retreat in Baltimore over the weekend, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex) took the president to task for paying lip service to deficit reduction and then exploding the national debt with trillion dollar budget deficits as far as the eye can see. As a side note, Obama referred to Jeb as “Jim” three times (which the official White House transcript edited despite video proof of the gaffe).
Here’s the transcript.
Hensarling: You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? That’s the question, Mr. President.
Obama: Now, look, let’s talk about the budget, once again, because I’ll go through it with you line by line.
The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. $1.3 trillion. So — so when you say that suddenly I’ve got a monthly budget that is higher than the annual — or a monthly deficit that’s higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true.
And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade.
Had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000, when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren’t paid for, you had a prescription drug plan — the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades — that was passed, without it being paid for, you had two wars that were done through supplementals, and then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession.
That’s $8 trillion. Now, we increased it by $1 trillion because of the spending that we had to make on the stimulus.
I am happy to have any independent factchecker out there take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said.
Hensarling didn’t appreciate being called a liar by the president, so he went on Morning Joe to have his own Joe Wilson moment to prove the president, who welcomed the fact-checking, was, in fact the liar.
Transcript:
Well, either the President misunderstood the point or he just hasn’t been well informed. If you look at the 12 years when Republicans controlled the Congress, the average annual deficit was about $104 billion. I’m not proud of that number. That’s too high. But in the three years that Democrats have controlled Congress, the average annual deficit is now $1.1 Trillion. Do the math. What used to be an annual deficit under Republicans has become a monthly deficit under Democrats.
Did the president think he was going to get away with a provably false claim that his astonishing, historic budget deficits were somehow less than those of his predecessors? The man has an inexplicable supply of self-confidence.
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[...] expsoed for the bullshit it was in every single response. He laid them to waste…..Loved it. Hensarling destroys Obama in deficit kerfuffle When Obama addressed the GOP retreat in Baltimore over the weekend, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex) [...]
[...] when talking to House Republicans last week. Rep. Hensarling slammed him today on Morning Joe. (Click here for a transcript of the big whopper and Hensarling’s [...]
Obama didn’t claim that his deficits were less than those preceding his administration. He said they weren’t 12 times larger. Assuming Obama knew what Hensarling meant by “old Republican budgets,” and he obviously didn’t, Obama is right, anyway. Using Hensarling’s numbers (deficit/GDP would be better and his figures aren’t adjusted for inflation, but alright), 1.1 divided by 0.104 is less than 12.
What’s more, outside of entitlement spending, the deficit is almost entirely a result of laws passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President. Hensarling is technically be telling the truth (hell, he could define “old Republican budgets” as ones before FY2002 and claim an average surplus), but his framing is deeply dishonest:
1. In 7 out of the 12 years that Republicans controlled Congress (1995-2001), tax cuts accounting for about $200 billion/year were not on the books. In 2002, $130 billion. In 2003, $80 billion.
2. Medicare Part D was passed by a Republican Congress, but only in effect starting in 2006 (so it only affects a fraction of 1 in 12 GOP-budgeted fiscal years). $40-$50 billion/year.
3. We spent essentially all of FY2008 and 2009 in the deepest recession since the depression. Early reports suggest that this might have affected revenue.
4. The average trust fund surplus was $50 billion higher in GOP-budgeted years
5. Hensarling voted for the 2008 stimulus ($152 billion)
6. Relative to current law and not including TARP & stimulus, Obama’s proposed 2010 and 2011 budgets reduce the deficit.
7. Hensarling opposes the House health reform bill on the grounds that it “Cuts the Medicare Advantage program by at least $150 billion” while he simultaneously advocates a GOP health plan that would cut Medicare spending by several hundred billions dollars over the same period relative to current law. Apparently, he only likes the portions of Medicare which provide no substantial benefit.
Obama misinterpreted Hensarling’s point (not all that surprising since it came in the middle of a 300-word rant) and thought Hensarling was saying that Obama’s budget had monthly deficits greater than the annual deficits of the budgets preceding his administration. I don’t think it’s particularly obvious that by “old Republican budgets,” Hensarling meant, “budgets made in a Republican Congress from FY1996 to FY2007.” Or that he meant that budgets entirely belong to Congress and not to the President who submits them and signs them into law.
Especially when you consider that Democrats held a bare majority in the Senate for most of the 107th Congress. Using Hensarling’s math, Dems should get half credit for the FY 2002’s mere $158 billion deficit since they controlled the Senate. And about a quarter of the credit/blame for FY 2003.
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