A Chat Between Obama and Ryan…
Paul Ryan:
I serve as the ranking member of the Budget Committee, so I want to talk a little budget, if you don’t mind. The spending bills that you have signed into law, the domestic and discretionary spending has been increased by 84 percent. You now want to freeze spending at this elevated level beginning next year. This means that total spending in your budget would grow at three hundredths of 1 percent less than otherwise. I would simply submit that we could do more and start now.
Obama responded directly:
I want to just push back a little bit on the underlying premise, about us increasing spending by 84 percent. Now, look, I talked to Peter Orszag right before I came here, because I suspected I’d be hearing this—I’d be hearing this argument. The fact of the matter is that most of the increases in this year’s budget, this past year’s budget, were not as a consequence of policies that we initiated, but instead were built in as a consequence of the automatic stabilizers that kick in because of this enormous recession. So the increase in the budget for this past year was actually predicted before I was even sworn into office and had initiated any policies.
Obama went on to claim that anyone who had occupied the White House “would have seen those same increases” and that “a lot of these things happened automatically.”
He was wrong. Ryan gently corrected the president.“
I would simply say that automatic stabilizer spending is mandatory spending. The discretionary spending, the bills that Congress signs—that you sign into law—that has increased 84 percent. So .  .  .”
Obama, having been bested, moved quickly to end the exchange. “We’ll have a—we’ll have a longer debate on the budget numbers there, all right?”
Man with a Plan | The Weekly Standard
Having been corrected and shown he was wrong, Obama just ended the conversation.
Notice how he tried to deflect early on and said that the increases whould have happened to anyone because of the terrible recession and predicted before he was even sworn in... in other words...Bush's fault!
I sure would like to see a debate between these two! Hope Ryan schools Romney well!
Paul Ryan:
I serve as the ranking member of the Budget Committee, so I want to talk a little budget, if you don’t mind. The spending bills that you have signed into law, the domestic and discretionary spending has been increased by 84 percent. You now want to freeze spending at this elevated level beginning next year. This means that total spending in your budget would grow at three hundredths of 1 percent less than otherwise. I would simply submit that we could do more and start now.
Obama responded directly:
I want to just push back a little bit on the underlying premise, about us increasing spending by 84 percent. Now, look, I talked to Peter Orszag right before I came here, because I suspected I’d be hearing this—I’d be hearing this argument. The fact of the matter is that most of the increases in this year’s budget, this past year’s budget, were not as a consequence of policies that we initiated, but instead were built in as a consequence of the automatic stabilizers that kick in because of this enormous recession. So the increase in the budget for this past year was actually predicted before I was even sworn into office and had initiated any policies.
Obama went on to claim that anyone who had occupied the White House “would have seen those same increases” and that “a lot of these things happened automatically.”
He was wrong. Ryan gently corrected the president.“
I would simply say that automatic stabilizer spending is mandatory spending. The discretionary spending, the bills that Congress signs—that you sign into law—that has increased 84 percent. So .  .  .”
Obama, having been bested, moved quickly to end the exchange. “We’ll have a—we’ll have a longer debate on the budget numbers there, all right?”
Man with a Plan | The Weekly Standard
Having been corrected and shown he was wrong, Obama just ended the conversation.
Notice how he tried to deflect early on and said that the increases whould have happened to anyone because of the terrible recession and predicted before he was even sworn in... in other words...Bush's fault!
I sure would like to see a debate between these two! Hope Ryan schools Romney well!