Obama to Boehner: “We don’t have a spending problem”

I’m wondering if President Obama figured House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would spill the beans concerning the discussions he had with the president. I want to hear more. I want to hear the president stand up and tell the American people the federal government does not “have a spending problem.”

If true, and I don’t doubt it for a second, it shows this president and the Democrats are ready to double-down on tax increases during the next few months. As I’ve said before, we’ll see nothing at all when it comes to reducing the size of the federal government simply because they don’t want it smaller. None of them do; Republicans or Democrats. I don’t see it … do you? From Stephen Moore at the Wall Street Journal.

What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: “At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.'”

I’m sorry, the speaker did not know this?

The president’s insistence that Washington doesn’t have a spending problem, Mr. Boehner says, is predicated on the belief that massive federal deficits stem from what Mr. Obama called “a health-care problem.” Mr. Boehner says that after he recovered from his astonishment—”They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system”—he replied: “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with ObamaCare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.” He repeated this message so often, he says, that toward the end of the negotiations, the president became irritated and said: “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”

So in other words, the health care problem all of a sudden resulted in a 800 percent increase in the deficit between 2007 ($161 billion) and 2009 ($1.413 trillion) and deficits have stayed in that $1.3 to 1.4 trillion dollar range to this day.

The real showdown will be on the debt ceiling and the spending sequester in March. I ask Mr. Boehner if he will take the debt-ceiling talks to the brink—risking a government shutdown and debt downgrade from the credit agencies—given that it didn’t work in 2011 and President Obama has said he won’t bargain on the matter.

The debt bill is “one point of leverage,” Mr. Boehner says, but he also hedges, noting that it is “not the ultimate leverage.”

What’s the ultimate leverage?

The Republicans’ stronger card, Mr. Boehner believes, will be the automatic spending sequester trigger that trims all discretionary programs—defense and domestic.

Are you friggin’ kidding me? Am I missing something here? Was that not part of the Jan. 1 Fiscal Cliff that never happened? Let me tell you something readers … there are no automatic spending cuts, it’s a complete smoke-screen lie. They can tell you it will happen, but it will never, ever, ever happen since they will just change the rules, move the goal posts and kick the can down the road as they always do.

Jan. 2 proved my case. Throw all the bums out … ALL OF THEM.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

11 Comments

  1. stinkfoot on January 6, 2013 at 10:17 pm

    Stunned?? Whom did Boehner think he was dealing with?



  2. JollyRoger on January 7, 2013 at 12:17 am

    Obama seems to be the poster child for something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder- NPD.? http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/DS00652/DSECTION=symptoms
    Call me a birther, but the man was never vetted, he couldn’t qualify as a secret service agent, his lies are innumerable, he was conceived to an underage mother, his father was absent and a philanderer, his mother put her career first, his closest friends bombed the Pentagon and stomped on American flags…? Surely this man needs a check-up-from-the-neck-up!?



    • JBS on January 7, 2013 at 8:26 am

      Yo, JR, I went to the site and . . .
      ALL of the described characteristics fit. All it needed was a picture of The ? (with a halo, of course) and a map with an arrow pointing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.



  3. JBS on January 7, 2013 at 8:10 am

    Another installment of Political Theater that will cost the American people dearly and will cripple the American economy even further.
    Steve, I’m confused, here.
    It is revealing that ?They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system.???? Possibly it is because they, we, are not spending enough money on it?! It seems that Barry is admitting that Medicare and Medicaid are draining the national coffers without adding to the revenue side. How about all of the other wasteful spending that does nothing to generate revenue? Is this really what the Democrats and the Republicans think? That spending increases what? Taxes?
    There is a convoluted thought process there that doesn’t make sense to me.



  4. Lynn on January 7, 2013 at 8:59 am

    I’m tired of the phrase, “kicking the can down the road”. I also think the public does not understand anything but cartoons. I think we need to use a “Peanuts” character to describe what is happening. Steve you almost had it. But instead of moving the goalposts, it should be, Congress as Charlie Brown and President Obama as Lucy yanking the football away. ?It’s time to bring in a third string.



  5. JollyRoger on January 7, 2013 at 3:18 pm


    • Lynn on January 7, 2013 at 6:09 pm

      Ok, I agree he does exhibit all but one of the characteristics. He does seem to have a healthy and loving relationship with his family. But have to admit, I loved reading your link. Thanks



  6. essneff on January 7, 2013 at 11:13 pm

    Steve, You are 100% right…. the so called “fiscal cliff” bill supposedly secured the imaginary?cuts from the sequester ( actually only small decreases in the?baseline increases in spending over 10 years)?……… a true speaker of the house would tell the potus that you?need to provide that $1 trillion?plus much more including entitlement reform?for another rise in the debt ceiling, but I agree, we won’t see a dime of real cuts………?It is time for?term limits,?these career politicians bring nothing to the table but generational theft from the yet to be born



  7. Dimsdale on January 8, 2013 at 11:30 am

    No spending problem?
    ?
    That is the ?bamalie to end all ?bamalies.
    ?
    The Chicoms are laughing their way to bank.



  8. PatRiot on January 9, 2013 at 5:06 pm

    Steve is spot on.?Obama is addicted to the point of being dilusional.??And someone kept Boehner from his last fix for him to have even said what he did.
    ?



  9. PatRiot on January 9, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    For Obama to say ?I?m getting tired of hearing you say that.? is an indication of resolve.?
    An indiciation that the fundamental change he wants for America is?near at hand.?
    Sounds more dictatorial than Presidential, eh?



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