President Obama’s budget shows how the he is “fulfilling a moral obligation” to cut federal debt, according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who also revived attacks on Paul Ryan’s budget, which he said would “decimate Medicare.”
“The President’s vision for fulfilling the moral obligation to tackle the debt is contained within the budget he presented today,” Carney said today to explain why Obama’s budget does not cut more. “He certainly did not mean last summer that we should contract spending in a way that threw the very fragile recovery at that point into reverse and caused further job loss and inflicted further economic pain on the American people.”
Carney seemed irritated when a reporter noted that, under Obama’s budget, the nation will be $25 trillion in debt by 2022. “I’m sorry, has someone else offered a $25 trillion debt reduction plan?” he asked. “Because I think I’d be interested to see it.”
President Obama’s budget surpasses “the so-called Ryan budget, which basically ends [Medicare] as we know it.” He allow that Obama has not “solved every problem for the country going forward,” but said that he had developed a “responsible” blueprint. “You need to ask something of the wealthiest Americans, who at a time when the middle class was getting hammered, was enjoying the greatest accumulation of wealth in the previous decade before the President took office,” Carney told reporters. “And all we’re asking is that everyone pay their fair share so that everyone gets a fair shot.”
