TDPS: Small changes in Obama budget maintain status quo, nothing to get excited about - TRANSCRIPT

[celtics23]

Run time: 08:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2DnVaGm1R0   Posted on YouTube: February 18, 2011 By YouTube Member: MidweekPolitics Views on YouTube: 216   Posted on DU: February 19, 2011 By DU Member: celtics23 Views on DU: 547

 
From: www.davidpakman.com | Subscription: www.davidpakman.com/membership | YouTube: www.youtube.com/midweekpolitics

David: Make sure you're following us or liking us on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/DavidPakmanShow. Let's talk about the Barack Obama 2012 budget. I've combed through this thing as best I can, it's pretty long, as we know. And I figure if members of Congress aren't going to read this thing, why the hell should I, you know? But I did just in preparation for the show go through some of it.

And by any-- I have a lot of problems with it, but we'll get to those. By any common sense standard, Obama is saying that by the middle of the decade, 2015, there will no longer be a deficit, OK? And when he said that, a lot of people, myself included, said what is he talking about there will no longer be a deficit? So I looked into it, and what he actually meant was we will not be adding more to the national debt, but even that's not true, instead of interest.

So I want to summarize this for our audience, to be very clear, and for Louis, because he expressed concern that he was not fully understanding what was meant by this. The idea is that there will be no addition to the base deficit, but interest will continue to accrue on the existing deficit, which still means that the deficit is going to continue going up. Is this a lie by Barack Obama? Is this a misdirection? I don't know what we want to call it. It's certainly not the truth by-- in terms of the spirit of what he is saying, fair to say? Or do you believe that he is actually being accurate there?

Louis: It's just careful use of words. I...

David: Well, but Louis, if you went to the bank to borrow money, right, and they asked you for what are your expenses, and you told them what you spend on...

Louis: Well, what...

David: Hold on a second, though. Your car and your home mortgage and your credit cards, but you didn't include any of the interest on those things. You said well, they wanted to know my spending, the interest doesn't count towards that. That would be dishonest, right?

Louis: I suppose in a way.

David: But you still think that by the letter of the law, he may have been telling the truth?

Louis: Yes.

David: All right, well, Louis's take. The other thing that's being discussed is we are not actually cutting anything with this budget. What we are doing is growing the budget by less than what was expected, so there is a cut in the planned growth. And a lot of people are not grasping this. A lot of people are emailing me saying look at these huge cuts in the actual budget. There's a difference by saying we are going to spend less, and we are not going to increase spending by as much as you all thought we were going to. There is a big difference there. So the cut is 2.5% off of the planned growth, $78 billion over five years.

At the same time, it's a fair question, do we really need cuts overall, and if we do, are we cutting the right things, OK? House Republicans, as we know, have become obsessed with this fiscal conservatism all of a sudden, even though, by the way, as long as you can't raise taxes to balance the budget. Can't do that. And for eight years before Barack Obama, they rubber-stamped all of George W. Bush's big government, corporate conservatism, and this explosion of the national debt. They won't talk about that, at least not to us, and certainly, unless they are forced to talk about it, Republicans won't mention, by the way, the debt exploded under George Bush. Are you hearing any mentions of that, Louis?

Louis: No, no, of course not. Everything is Barack Obama's fault.

David: Barack Obama's fault, and something that is unique to Barack Obama. All of the problems that we see, alleged problems, pointed out now by Republicans are problems unique to the president.

Now, we can't forget that the cuts, these proposed cuts to planned growth, I mean, listen to what we're even talking about here, ladies and gentlemen, are barely going to offset the tab from increase-- from extending the Bush tax cuts. Remember those Bush tax cuts we've been talking about for a while? They added $858 billion to the deficit over two years including $125 billion for Americans making over a quarter-million dollars, and slashing the estate tax.

All of these... we're making a huge deal out of tiny cuts to planned growth, not absolute cuts, and all it's going to do is basically balance out the negative effects to the debt of extending the Bush tax cuts. It's pathetic. And you're not going to hear, by the way, it goes without saying you won't hear that on Fox News, but you'll barely hear it anywhere else, let's put these things side to side.

Now, remember, the idea of extending the Bush tax cuts for Barack Obama was a compromise of sorts. Barack Obama would yield there, and I guess he gets to keep the middle-class tax cut too. That was the deal that was made.

Louis: Yeah.

David: And the guise was well, if you do that, then Republicans are going to say well, you know what? Even though normally we wouldn't like A, B, C, D, E, F, G, in the president's budget, we'll go easy because he extended the tax cuts, right? This was the fantasy world that we were living in. And we said from the start, Louis, there is not going to be any political benefit to extending those tax cuts, and there is not. There is not. Republicans are not yielding anything now on this budget.

Louis: No political benefit and no fiscal benefit.

David: Fiscal benefit, throw it out the window. We know that. People don't... businesses don't hire because the guy at the top got a small tax cut, that won't drive demand, it won't give more money to the people who are buying from that business. That is out the window. But again, Barack Obama has not gained anything, and now with this budget, Republicans will still complain.

Louis: Well, let's, while we still have some time, let's get into some of the specifics.

David: Yeah. So the good, the budget includes additional funds for education, high-speed rail, a national wireless network. Democrats and Obama like those things, I like lot of those things. We're going to spend more to train math, science, and engineering teachers. We're embarrassingly behind in a lot of school subjects already, so that's good. The energy department's budget is higher, and much of that is going to go to clean energy programs, that's good. Some slight cuts to military procurement, 6%. Meh. It's not much. Defense R&D, 6%. Military construction down 42%, but that's only $13 billion total, which is a drop in the bucket. And...

Louis: From what I understand, there's going to be increases in military spending too, which will actually... there will end up being more money spent on the military, yeah.

David: Right. Even though existing areas are being cut, all-new areas, if you thought we were already-- we can create new areas of spending when it comes to defense. What's bad here? Well, heating assistance for low-income families, block grants for community development, Pell grants, Employment and Training Administration down 51%. But you know what? Here's the reality. This is the same type of budget that we have had in this country for a long time. It yields to special interests, it yields to the war obsession, militarism, it's all there.

And listen, I understand this idea of incrementalism. Ted Kennedy on health care was big on anything we can do to go in the right direction just means we're a little bit closer when we want the next step. I get that. But the reality is it is very hard for me to get excited over any of these slight changes to the budget. It's just, I can't get excited over it. It's essentially the same status quo.

Louis: Right. If we're going to have any real change, I think, well, obviously, there needs to be big defense cuts, and we need to start looking at entitlements.

David: Yeah... looking at them in what way? The entitlements which are called entitlements because it's your money and you are entitled to it, right? Or they're not those types of entitlements?

Louis: Yeah, those entitlements.

David: You need to look at them in what way?

Louis: A possible raise in the retirement age.

David: Uh-oh, Louis is starting to go now. Give me more information, Louis.

Louis: We don't have time.

David: All right.

Louis: We might have to discuss this on the bonus show.

David: Fine. Last week's poll, will the AOL/Huffington Post buyout affect media dialogue in what way? 63% say it is going to make corporate media even more homogenous and reduce diversity of voices. I agree. That's the bottom line.



Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham and www.Subscriptorium.com. For transcripts, translations, captions, and subtitles, or for more information, visit www.Subscriptorium.com, or contact Alex at [e-mail].

[donthebun]

1. I completely agree. Thanks for posting!

[tins0404]

2. And both sides will pretend that the changes are outrageously huge...