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 A Billion Dollars An Hour - White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs 3/11/09 — Thursday, March 12, 2009 —  Q Robert, following on what Jennifer was saying about gentle rhetoric from the President today, when you mentioned that Congress didn't get nine of the 13 appropriations bills done, that's something the Democratic Congress -- his fellow Democrats failed to get those bills done last year. Now Mitch McConnell today, the Republican Leader, was saying that when you add up the $787 billion stimulus, you add on the $410 billion the President is about to sign for omnibus, that's a billion dollars an hour in 50 -- 51 days. When the American people look at that, is that really change to the way Washington is working?MR. GIBBS: Well, I probably shouldn't engage an individual Senator who ran Congress for a number of years where deficits set records, and I won't do something like that today. I mean, I -- (laughter.) Q Tomorrow maybe? MR. GIBBS: Or later in this briefing. (Laughter.) Q But the President is signing these now. Regardless of what Mitch McConnell did before, the President is signing -- MR. GIBBS: Well, but hold on, let's not -- I'm asked about the debt every day. That's not exactly -- let's not exactly put aside -- Q That's last year's business, right? MR. GIBBS: No, I -- well, according to some in the Senate, it was last hour's business. The President has proposed a return to fiscal sanity, and a path towards fiscal responsibility. Look, here's what I would say -- I'll break my campaign promise and engage the Senator from Kentucky, and any senator or representative in Congress. They're -- it is certainly within one's right to criticize the budget. That's -- we get that. I think the best way for him to put forward a budget that we can look at and debate and see whether there's honest accounting -- whether we take into account natural disasters, paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the possibility of continued financial stability, investments in health care, education, and energy independence -- I think the best way to do that is for Senator McConnell, and anybody else, to put forward a budget plan that does those things and puts ourselves on a path towards fiscal responsibility. I think that's the best way to have the debate joined. It's an important debate that we're having, and I think it's important that, as Mr. Buffett said, we work constructively together to try to solve our economic challenges. But that's all part of the process. Q Why did the President apply a different standard of "this is last year's business" for this legislation, when in things like TARP, when he was President-elect, he reached out to then-President Bush and said, look, we need to authorize the other $350 billion -- even though TARP was last October, it was clearly last year's business -- MR. GIBBS: Well, no, no. let's be fair, Ed. Q I am being fair. MR. GIBBS: Okay, well, let's understand -- how does the next $350 billion get triggered? Q It's triggered by the President -- MR. GIBBS: No, it gets triggered by the Senate. The Senate had to -- I'm sorry, one House of the Congress had to basically authorize the re-spending of that money. So that was something that was put in by last Congress -- at our request certainly -- I mean this -- but it's not a -- trust me, having listened to some of those phone calls, it wasn't a one-sided deal. Triggering an additional amount of money in order to be spent in the current -- isn't last year's business. Q There are a whole host of things like that, that President Bush -- you've said you inherited from President Bush, but you're not running away from them -- like Iraq timetable. The President followed through on that, said -- MR. GIBBS: I'm glad to see you -- Q Okay, the question is, on this piece of legislation, the President used the principle: This is last year's business. So even though it's got all kinds of things I don't like, I'm going to sign it anyway. Okay? There are a whole bunch of other things he got from President Bush that he doesn't like either. And he's going to change -- President Bush didn't want to have a timetable in Iraq, but President Obama came in and said, we're going to put that timetable -- I campaigned on that. Well, he campaigned on earmarks, as well, pulling them out of these bills. Where is the consistency? MR. GIBBS: I'm having a lot of trouble connecting the dots in your -- I mean, I suppose the President could have come in and assumed that people weren't in Iraq, but I don't understand your analogy. Q You're saying this legislation is last year's business, but he's signing it into law this year. He could have vetoed it. Why wouldn't he veto it? MR. GIBBS: Let me give you last -- let me give you yesterday's answer. The President believes that, despite protestations, that appropriations bills designed to be completed before September 30th of the previous year are last year's business. I think any reasonable look at the appropriations process would understand that. The President believes that, moving forward, dozens and dozens of appropriations bills will cross his desk because he's asked, first and foremost, that Congress not lump large bills together. And to be fair, that's done virtually every year; six to nine of these appropriations bills get glommed on at the very end or go into overtime in order to do that -- that changing the rules going forward were important because the President is best able to have an impact on that legislation moving forward. That's what the President enumerated through transparency and a full set of earmark reforms that -- I bet when we look back on a year or two from now we'll see a decrease in the number of spending projects, just as the President has asked that we put ourselves back on a path toward fiscal responsibility through a budget that will cut the deficit in half in just four years. Congress | Legislation | Obama Administration | Pork | Press Briefing | Robert Gibbs | TARP | White House Press Corps Labels: Congress, Legislation, Obama Administration, Pork, Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs, TARP, White House Press Corps
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 2:50 PM
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