Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell reiterated his position Sunday that the hubbub over President Barack Obama’s birth certificate – which the president himself poked fun at during Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner – is a side issue and a waste of time that never should have been raised.
“The problem with President Obama is not where he [was] born, it’s some of the policies that he’s advocating,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The feeble attempt, I think, to be able to get our deficits and debt under control with the proposals that [have] been made in the president’s budget really are the issue in this campaign.”
Obama has outlined a plan to trim the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years by cutting spending and letting the Bush-era tax cuts on wealthy earners expire — while leaving entitlement programs largely intact. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut about $6 trillion in spending over the next decade, give states control over Medicaid and eventually turn Medicare into a voucher program.
The president actually called McDonnell Thursday regarding the recent storms, which killed several people in Virginia and more than 300 elsewhere in the south. McDonnell said Sunday the president assured him the federal government would do everything it could to help.
McDonnell, who toured damaged areas in southwest Virginia Friday, has asked for federal assistance in the recovery and called the situation “heartbreaking.”
“The plan from the first responders worked like it was supposed to,” he said. “The American people, while we disagree on some things, when we are attacked or we have a catastrophe like this, we bind together and work together and help each other better than any country on earth.
“I think the systems are working as good as they can, but it is going to be a long road back for some of these communities, particularly Alabama and Mississippi, but we’ve got some people that are hurting in Virginia now,” he continued.
McDonnell appeared on the program with Obama advisor David Axelrod and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
