Today, the President held a fiscal responsibility summit in which he met with a bi partisan group of lawmakers, economists and power brokers to talk about ways to reduce our budget short fall in the long term. There are those, like me, that think that it takes an awful lot of chutzpah to push through a bill that's nearly $800 billion and then hold a summit on fiscal responsibility. There are others that say what's important is that the government recognize that fiscal responsibility is very important in the long term. I actually agree with both sides (of course I agree with myself), and I agree that if the President is serious about long term fiscal responsibility that cynical or not that's a good thing. Of course, as a late friend of mine often said
if if was a fifth we'd all be drunk
From all reports today, this conference had little to do with finding solutions for long term fiscal responsibility and much more to do with politics and posturing.
The President started the conference by taking pot shots at the previous administration.
President Barack Obama took aim at the “casual dishonesty” of Bush administration budgets Monday, saying he’ll abandon accounting “tricks” used to hide the ballooning deficit and pledging to cut a $1.3 trillion federal shortfall in half during his first term. “I want to be very clear,” Obama said to open a “fiscal responsibility summit” at the White House.
“We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration and the next generation.”
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