When President Obama unveiled his budget on Monday, it became clear that he would break his pledge to cut the deficit in half in his first term in office. But the White House website is still prominently touting the promise.
When visitors to the White House website click on “Fiscal Responsibility” under the “Issues” section, they are directed to a page that includes the following:
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Though that would mean cutting the deficit to $650 billion, Obama’s budget projects deficits of $1.3 trillion in fiscal year 2012 (ending this September) and $901 billion for fiscal year 2013. Non-defense discretionary spending is not at the lowest level since 1962, either (more like 2008 or 2001, depending on whether you’re comparing it to this year or next).
This was brought to my attention by blogger Pundit Pete, who also notes that when pressed on this broken promise on Fox News Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew tried to chalk it up to the economic picture having deteriorated after Obama made the initial pledge, stating, “as the 2009 and 2010 went on, we all learned more about the deep of the recession we inherited, which we have very — worked very hard to dig out of.”
Of course, this doesn’t explain why the White House website continues to promote the pledge, knowing what we know now.
Ironically, the White House website also includes this vow:
But in reality, one of the biggest gimmicks in Obama’s budget is that it relies on phony “war savings,” which pretends that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan would be fought at full force in perpetuity and counts money that would have never been spent anyway as deficit reduction.
Looks like the White House website could use some updating.
