in their own words
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 Isn't The President Part Of That Blame Game? - White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs 12/9/09 — Monday, December 14, 2009 —  Q Did the President in the meeting with Congress tell the Republicans and Minority Leader Boehner that they almost seem to be rooting against recovery?MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the President did mention, and I think Republicans agreed, that the room was not without politics, and that politics obviously has -- I think politics has clearly played a role in many of their statements and votes on the Recovery Act. I don't think that's any big secret. Q He thinks Republicans basically want the jobless rate to stay above 10 percent -- MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the President would like Democrats and Republicans alike to prove to the American people that we can set aside whatever narrow political agendas anybody has in order to address the severity of the economic downturn and the joblessness that's resulted from it. And I can think of nothing better than taking the President up on, again, two of the ideas that have normally enjoyed very bipartisan support: increasing our investment in infrastructure, which will create jobs; and help to hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country in terms of getting access to credit; tax incentives for hiring. Look, again, the most important thing is those things in a nonpartisan environment would get the support of Republicans and Democrats alike. I don't think that should be any different with this President, nor would it or should it be with any other President. I think we have a challenge that the American people have laid before us, and that is to solve the problems that they have without getting involved in that blame game. And I think -- Q Isn't the President part of that blame game, too? I mean, he took the partisan swipe yesterday in that speech. I mean, even here you talked about their failed stewardship on the deficit. I mean, this administration doesn't miss an opportunity to blame the past administration. MR. GIBBS: Well, look -- well, Savannah, I appreciate the ability to forget what happened every -- to forget every -- Q But my point -- MR. GIBBS: No, no, but understand we've -- I appreciate the ability to forget anything that happened before we got here. The President didn't -- the President inherited an economic downturn, he inherited a massive budget deficit. He understands one thing: The American people put him here to solve the problems that were created however and by whoever they were created. That's what the President is going to do. He's going to make decisions that won't be altogether wildly popular with the American people. But I think he believes that the American people will understand that we're making those tough decisions to pull ourselves back from falling into another Great Depression. It is hard to argue, Savannah, it is hard to argue that the steps taken in the Recovery Act didn't directly lead to the first economic growth in a year. Don't believe me; ask John McCain's economist who said we created jobs, that we put ourselves on a path towards economic growth. That's not me. That's -- that was our rival's chief economist in the campaign. I think what the President believes is we have a unique opportunity -- setting aside all of that -- to move forward on behalf of the American people; to do it in a way that truly addresses their problems without falling into the convenient political back-and-forth and games that have always governed Washington. We can show the American people this -- at this time and this year that it's possible to do that. Q You said the President does recognize that he's got the job now, so now it falls to him to fix it. Is there any statute of limitations, though, on how often he may mention what he inherited or the mess he inherited or how the past administration failed? MR. GIBBS: Again, it would be easy to put it all in a box and just forget about it, but we didn't get here overnight. We're not going to get out of our problems overnight. It's not part of the blame game. It's just -- it's a fact of life. Bush Administration | Economy | President Obama | Press Briefing | Republicans | Robert Gibbs | Unemployment | White House Press Corps Labels: Bush Administration, Economy, President Obama, Press Briefing, Republicans, Robert Gibbs, Unemployment, White House Press Corps >> Full Story
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 10:05:00 PM
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2 Comments:
and that has become very evident. Democrats are famous for causing problems that they can then fix and claim to be hero's. unfortunately that MO is NOT progressive, in fact it holds us back and in the end it was all about democrats needing to hold on to their power. but this time they went too far and everything is blowing up in their face.
and stop blaming Bush a year later...geez. NO CEO alive would get away with such a lame excuse. just do your darn job.
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