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President Obama: Time Has Run Out

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on July 22, 2011.

07-22-2011 by Linda S. Carbonell

President Obama took to the airwaves at 6 p.m. Eastern time to tell the American public that Speaker Boehner walked out of the debt ceiling negotiations and refused to take the President’s phone calls. The negotiations ground to a halt with Boehner saying once again that the President didn’t have a plan. Well, the President told us all what the plan was, what the offer was, and how the Republicans are willing to destroy the country’s economy and possibly the world’s rather than raise revenues in any way.

Fox News actually carried the whole press conference live, a move that comes as a shock to those who have watched them consistently deny their viewers the President’s words. Attempts to access the Speaker’s website, speaker.gov met with the message “server is too busy.”

The President made it clear that we cannot simply raise the debt ceiling. Our national credit rating is also dependent, to those who determine our credit rating, that we have a plan to reduce our debt and deficits.

“That’s all the American people want – fairness.” The President has responded to that with his offer. It’s a broad plan that both cuts spending and raises revenues without raising any tax rates. He admits that this plan could cost Democrats support, and that Democrats are willing to do that for the good of the nation.

Watching Fox News after the press conference was interesting. No matter what Chris Wallace tried to do, there was no way to spin this other than to say that the President took a shot at Republicans and laid the blame for the collapse of the negotiations on them. Wallace said that the Republicans have alleged that the President moved the goalposts on revenues, which the President denied in the press conference. Repubs say he demanded more revenues than the Gang of Six, but the President said the revenues requested were less than that. The Fox analysts are still saying the President hasn’t put forth any particulars of a plan, but neither have the Republicans in terms of these negotiations. Their idea of a detailed plan is the Ryan budget plan that is shorter than some papers I wrote in college, and the “cut, cap and balance” bill that didn’t lay out any details either, just a demand to slash spending, cap all government spending at 18% of GDP and pass a balanced budget amendment. Where are the details of spending cuts in that?

The President offered $1.65 trillion in cuts and asked for $1.3 trillion in new revenues. He refuses to put all these cuts on the backs of those who are most vulnerable. The right wing wants details? The Federal budget every year runs to hundreds of pages. Those are details. Agree to a target for cuts and then let the budget writers determine where. That is how this could have been handled if the budget had been debated in the same manner it has been for generations, instead of with this scorched earth attitude among House Republicans.

The President has “summoned” (Charles Krauthammer said that was “disgraceful”) to the White House at 11 a.m. Eastern on Saturday.