 In an interview with Atlanta's local Fox affiliate WAGA-TV President Obama explains why he was unable to cut the deficit in half in his first term, a promise he made as a candidate.
| He has to say something... |
Obama was lobbed the question by a sympathetic reporter who said he is getting "pelted in the media" for making a campaign promise he did not keep.
| Champ can always find a sympathetic reporter. They leap out of the woodwork. Champ can't help it, they're drawn to him... |
"Well we're not there because this recession turned out to be a lot deeper than any of us realized," Obama said about his inability to cut the deficit in half.
| Just figuring that out, are ya Champ? |
"Everybody who is out there back in 2009, if you look back what their estimates were in terms of how many jobs had been lost, how bad the economy had contracted when I took office, everybody underestimated it. People thought that the economy contracted 3%. It turns it retracted close to 9%. We lost 8 million jobs just in a year's span, about half a year before I took office and half a year after I took office," Obama said.
| But that didn't dissuade you from plowing full speed ahead with your progressive agenda. As Rahm said once, 'never let a crisis go to waste.' |
| The startling thing is that he admitted half of the decline took place on his watch. |
"So, the die had been cast, but a lot of us didn't understand at that point how bad it was going to get. That increases the deficit because less tax revenues come in, and it means that more people are getting unemployment insurance, we're helping states more so they don't teachers, etc. The key though is we're setting ourselves on a path where we can get our debt under control."
| Someday. But in the meantime let's spend like there's no tomorrow. |
| "a lot of us didn't understand at that point how bad it was going to get" - sounds like a political epitaph. |
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