BudgetGOP
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3/17/2011
The Budget Committee held a hearing today to consider the nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be President Obama’s deputy budget director. Sen. Sessions confronted the nominee over false assertions from the White House regarding the president’s budget.
Both President Obama and his budget director have repeatedly said that the president’s budget allows us to “live within our means,” “spend money that we have each year,” and “begin paying down our debt.” (http://1.usa.gov/hvENzK, http://youtu.be/rTuzmyMwH7E) Numerous fact-check organizations have found these statements to be false, (http://goo.gl/ZuitF) and Sessions has argued that these inaccurate claims undermine efforts to confront our growing fiscal crisis.
In reality, the budget that President Obama submitted adds $13 trillion to the debt, never has a deficit less than $600 billion, and spends more than it takes in every single year. And by the tenth year, interest payments on our debt will rise to $844 billion–more than we spend on Medicare or defense.
Note: Ms. Higginbottom, a former advisor for Obama’s presidential campaign, has no formal budget training or experience.
UPDATE 3/18: CBO released its analysis of the president’s budget today, finding that the Obama proposal actually conceals $2.3 trillion in deficits. Using more realistic economic assumptions than the White House used, total deficits over the next decade will reach $9.5 trillion. (http://1.usa.gov/fTc9lT)
H/T NewZeal on Facebook
At HotAir.com, Ed Morrissey had some thoughts about the exchange:
I feel a little bad for Heather Higginbottom in this clip — no, seriously, I do. The new nominee for Deputy Director of OMB went to the Senate yesterday for her confirmation hearing and ended up feeling the sting of Jeff Sessions’ expert cross-examination. Unfortunately for Higginbottom, she had to defend the indefensible, a series of statements about Barack Obama’s budget that were flat-out lies about its supposed fiscal responsibility. Sessions rips Obama, Tim Geithner, and OMB Director Jacob Lew and in the end gets her to concede that their claims on the budget were entirely wrong, if not deliberately false.
If you want to grow up to be a prosecutor or a Senator, or both, then consider this a practical lab on how it’s done…
…At least Higginbottom had enough honesty to admit that debt service is still part of the budget, and that borrowing to pay for debt service is still spending.
I think they’re going to need a new nominee soon.
