TheSeeker
Member
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 Obamas 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 its done. The same is true if you aspire to shoot fish in a barrel:
At the 4:25 mark:
HH: Senator, I think if were trying to lay a responsible fiscal path coming out of this severe economic downturn, then one of the first things we have to do is to stop digging into the hole with the programs were proposing and funding.
JS: Does this budget do that?
HH: The budget provides a path to ensure
JS: Does the budget do that? I dont know what a path means. In ten years, does it do what you said?
HH: Does it not add to the debt?
Actually, it does add to the debt, so that hole just keeps getting bigger. Higginbottom doesnt seem to understand the hole she dug herself in her testimony. Sessions makes it clear at the 5:09 mark:
JS: Lets take the last three years of the Presidents ten year budget. Do the deficits go down those years eight, nine, and ten, or does it go up in eight, nine, and ten?
HH: I dont have the deficit table in front of me
JS: Well, thats an important matter. I know what they basically say.
HH: The Presidents budget reduces the deficit, takes it to about $600 billion and stabilizes it, but as I
JS: No, it doesnt stabilize it. In years 8, 9, and 10, it goes up every year and reaches approximately nine hundred billion from six hundred billion.
Come on, Senator Sessions. Everyone in the White House thinks that only increasing the deficit by 50% over three years is stabilization! 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.
If you want to grow up to be a prosecutor or a Senator, or both, then consider this a practical lab on how its done. The same is true if you aspire to shoot fish in a barrel:
At the 4:25 mark:
HH: Senator, I think if were trying to lay a responsible fiscal path coming out of this severe economic downturn, then one of the first things we have to do is to stop digging into the hole with the programs were proposing and funding.
JS: Does this budget do that?
HH: The budget provides a path to ensure
JS: Does the budget do that? I dont know what a path means. In ten years, does it do what you said?
HH: Does it not add to the debt?
Actually, it does add to the debt, so that hole just keeps getting bigger. Higginbottom doesnt seem to understand the hole she dug herself in her testimony. Sessions makes it clear at the 5:09 mark:
JS: Lets take the last three years of the Presidents ten year budget. Do the deficits go down those years eight, nine, and ten, or does it go up in eight, nine, and ten?
HH: I dont have the deficit table in front of me
JS: Well, thats an important matter. I know what they basically say.
HH: The Presidents budget reduces the deficit, takes it to about $600 billion and stabilizes it, but as I
JS: No, it doesnt stabilize it. In years 8, 9, and 10, it goes up every year and reaches approximately nine hundred billion from six hundred billion.
Come on, Senator Sessions. Everyone in the White House thinks that only increasing the deficit by 50% over three years is stabilization! 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.
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