February 14, 2011 - 5:29pm
Of the three morning shows on Monday, only ABC's Good Morning America
aggressively pushed the Obama administration on a lack of substantial
cuts in the 2012 budget. NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show either
downplayed the issue or didn't fully explain the President's new
spending.
ABC's Jake Tapper declared that Obama's plan "
shows that the President will not take the lead in any aggressive measures to reduce the debt."
He also pointed out, "President Obama's budget projects at least $1
trillion in deficit reduction over ten years, but it still creates $7.2
trillion in new debt, pitting the President on a collision course with
Republicans who are already saying this budget does not take the deficit
seriously enough and deeper cuts are needed."
NBC's Chuck Todd ignored the new spending in the budget and instead
asserted that the White House is "join[ing] the battle" with its new
plan. Todd blandly repeated Obama's talking points on the cuts.
GMA
co-host George Stephanopoulos actually challenged Barack Obama's budget
director, Jacob Lew, wondering, "As you know, many Republicans are saying,
already, that it doesn't go nearly far enough. And they countered with a
budget that actually cuts, according to them, more than $60 billion
this year out of federal programs. Why can't the President go that far?"
On the Early Show, reporter Bill Plante didn't highlight the new
spending. Instead, he simply noted that Republicans believe the cuts
aren't enough.
Finally, at the close of his report, he allowed, "But overall, all of
these cuts, which Democrats and Republicans will argue over, affect only
one tenth of the budget. And the only way, as the President's budget
reduction commission said, to get complete, total spending cuts, is to
go in to the spending in the entitlement programs like Social Security
and Medicare. Not on the table."
A transcript of George Stephanopoulos' interview, which aired at 7:10am EST on April 14, follows:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And for more on this, let's
turn to the President's Budget Director Jack Lew [sic] who joins us
from the White House this morning. Thanks for joining us Mr. Lew.
JACOB LEW: Good morning, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, let's start out. You and other White House
officials have said there's a lot of pain in the President's budgets.
When you go to the doctor and you have a problem, he says rate the pain
on a scale of one to ten. How would you rate this pain?
LEW: You know, I think that, what I'd say is it has pain. I'm not sure
what number I'd give it, but it does the job. It cuts the deficit in
half by the end of the President's first term. It has $400 billion in
savings brought down to the level it was at in the Eisenhower
administration.
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, many Republicans are saying, already, that
it doesn't go nearly far enough. And they countered with a budget that
actually cuts, according to them, more than $60 billion this year out of
federal programs. Why can't the President go that far?
LEW: Well, we have a responsible plan out there that cuts spending but
also reduces the deficit. I think you have to look the at both of these
in order to see whether it's doing the job. We have yet to see another
plan that actually reduces the deficit. And would point to some of the
cuts we're making as real evidence that these are tough choices. And I
think this budget will stand the test that we live within our means and
we invest in the future. We invest in innovation, in education, in
innovation, in building what we need for the country to compete in the
21st century.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Where does the Republican plan, the current Republican
plan for this year fail? They say that they- we can absorb far more
pain. For example, they have ten times the cuts in community development
programs that the President has proposed. Let me repeat the question,
why can't the President go that far?
LEW: I think we're just at the beginning of a long process. Congress
hasn't yet acted on the measures that you're describing. We're putting
out there what we think is a balanced package with shared pain and with
deficit, reduction. We look forward to engaging with the Congress and
working on a bipartisan to actually solve the problem.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you're saying that the President might be able to accept some of those cuts the Republicans are proposing?
LEW: Well, I'm saying, if you look at our budget, our budget has
serious cuts. You know, I think today's a day that we're trying to take a
look at the whole picture. If you look at the Republican plan so far it
doesn't really chart a path to reduction. We all agree we need to cut
spending. I don't think there's a debate about that. The question is, is
it part of a plan that reduces the deficit? And are we asking for
balanced shared sacrifice and are we investing in the future? That's
what the President's budget that we're putting out today-
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to put up this chart that shows 84 percent of
the budget goes to entitlements, Medicare and Social Security, defense,
Homeland Security, interest on the debt that isn't being touched by you
or the Republican Party so far in the budget proposals they've pushed,
put forward. Is that in fact going to be necessary to really get a
handle on the U.S. debt and deficits?
LEW: George, when the commission was created, it was given the target
of bringing the deficit down to three percent of our economy. That's a
level that's sustainable. We're paying our current bills. Not adding to
our debt. The President's budget that we're putting out today achieves
that goal. And it achieves it by touching not just the areas we were
discussing earlier, but by touching almost every part of the budget. You
know, I've been doing this almost 30 years. I think if you look over
the course of the last three decades, it's not possible, I think, to
come up with an example where putting a controversial proposal out there
has really made the difference in terms of bridging the bipartisan
chasm that you need to get it done.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, when you were last budget director under
President Clinton, you left that job with a surplus in the United States
budget. Are we going to see that again in our lifetimes?
LEW: George, I wish I could stand here and say that we were on the edge
of a surplus. When I left, my last day in office, I went to Congress
and testified and projected $5.6 trillion surplus for the next ten
years. I came back ten years later to look at projections of over $10
trillion of debt over the next ten years. It's enough to break your
heart. It's going to take us a lot of hard work just to get to the point
where we're not adding to the debt. That's what this budget sets the
course for us to do and it's just a down payment. We then need to work
together to finish the job and get back to the place to talk about
balancing the budget but it's going to take a while and it's going to
take a lot of tough decisions. And there will be painful choices.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Jack Lew. Thanks very much.
- Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
