6:55PM: President Obama ended where he started, saying that his goal was not to play the game of political gridlock, he wants to get things done.
That’s why I say if we’re going to frame these debates in ways that allow us to solve them, then we can’t start off by figuring out, A, who’s to blame; B, how can we make the American people afraid of the other side. And unfortunately, that’s how our politics works right now. And that’s how a lot of our discussion works. That’s how we start off — every time somebody speaks in Congress, the first thing they do, they stand up and all the talking points — I see Frank Luntz up here sitting in the front. He’s already polled it, and he said, you know, the way you’re really going to — I’ve done a focus group and the way we’re going to really box in Obama on this one or make Pelosi look bad on that one — I know, I like Frank, we’ve had conversations between Frank and I. But that’s how we operate. It’s all tactics, and it’s not solving problems.
And so the question is, at what point can we have a serious conversation about Medicare and its long-term liability, or a serious question about — a serious conversation about Social Security, or a serious conversation about budget and debt in which we’re not simply trying to position ourselves politically. That’s what I’m committed to doing. We won’t agree all the time in getting it done, but I’m committed to doing it.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Take one more?
Fortunately for Pence and his GOP Conference, President Obama showed mercy. He said he couldn't take another, adding "But I’ll be happy to take your question, Congressman, offline." Pence should consider the GOP lucky that Pres. Obama didn't take another.
6:47PM: citizenx comments:
Take that Jim! (4+ / 0-)
by citizenx
6:46PM: Uh oh! Maddow catches Pres. Obama in an inaccuracy. It turns out that Hensarling's first name isn't 'Jim' as Pres. Obama had said -- it's 'Jeb.' I've had that happen to me before so I can sympathize with poor Rep. Hensarling. Heh.
6:44PM: More from Pres. Obama:
And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade — had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000 when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren’t paid for.
You had a prescription drug plan — the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades — that was passed without it being paid for. You had two wars that were done through supplementals. And then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession. That’s $8 trillion.
Now, we increased it by a trillion dollars because of the spending that we had to make on the stimulus. I am happy to have any independent fact-checker out there take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said.
Oh, Republicans sure do hate having to deal with actual facts, don't they?
6:42PM: President Obama responds to Hensarling:
THE PRESIDENT: Jeb, with all due respect, I’ve just got to take this last question as an example of how it’s very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we’re going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign.
Now, look, let’s talk about the budget once again, because I’ll go through it with you line by line. The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. — $1.3 [trillion.] So when you say that suddenly I’ve got a monthly budget that is higher than the — a monthly deficit that’s higher than the annual deficit left by the Republicans, that’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true.
6:41PM: Hensarling definitely wants the filibuster rule for the House GOP.
6:37PM: Coming up the most contentious exchange of the afternoon: Jeb (not Jim!) Hensarling and President Obama.