Q. The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?
A. You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no.
Q. Is there anything wrong with saying yes?
A. Let’s just take a look at what we’ve done. We’ve essentially said that, number one, we’re going to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to the lowest levels in decades. So that part of the budget that doesn’t include entitlements and doesn’t include defense – that we have the most control over – we’re actually setting on a downward trajectory in terms of percentage of G.D.P. So we’re making more tough choices in terms of eliminating programs and cutting back on spending than any administration has done in a very long time. We’re making some very tough choices.
What we have done is in a couple of critical areas that we have put off action for a very long time, decided that now is the time to ask. One is on health care. As you heard in the health care summit yesterday, there is uniform belief that the status quo is broken and if we don’t do anything, we will be in a much worse place, both fiscally as well as in terms of what’s happening to families and businesses than if we did something.
The second area is on energy, which we’ve been talking about for decades. Now, in each of those cases, what we’ve said is, on our watch, we’re going to solve problems that have weakened this economy for a generation. And it’s going to be hard and it’s going to require some costs. But if you look on the revenue side what we’re proposing, what we’re looking at is essentially to go back to the tax rates that existed during the 1990s when, as I recall, rich people were doing very well. In fact everybody was doing very well. We have proposed a cap and trade system, which could create some additional costs, but the vast majority of that we want to give back in the form of tax breaks to the 95 percent of working families.
So if you look at our budget, what you have is a very disciplined, fiscally responsible budget, along with an effort to deal with some very serious problems that have been put off for a very long time. And that I think is exactly what I proposed during the campaign. We are following through on every commitment that we’ve made, and that’s what I think is ultimately going to get our economy back on track.
...
President Obama: Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter. It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement – the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it’s important just to note when you start hearing folks through these words around that we’ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word socialist around can’t say the same.
Q. So who’s watch are we talking about here?
A. Well, I just think it’s clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system. And the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people if that coming in, the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. I have more than enough to do without having to worry the financial system. The fact that we’ve had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an indication of my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to which lax regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis.
I think that covers it.
His followup answer was better, but the best answer of all would have been derisive laughter, followed by, "You've got to be fuckin' kiddin' me. If I used the military in response to an attack on this country, would that mean I was a warmonger? The fact is, the economy is falling apart, and the only entity capable of holding it together is the government. That doesn't make me, or anyone else in this office, a 'socialist,' -- it just makes me a public servant, using the tools at my disposal to do my job."
I'm reminded of the tone of Joe Biden's response to that airhead in Florida.
That Obama feels it necessary to go into this long-winded reply to a stupid question, and that he later felt it necessary to call the paper back for a do-over, suggests he's feeling the heat of all this socialism talk. That could be a good sign -- it could mean he realizes he's going to have to use even more activist policies to halt the freefall, and he wants to establish that socialism and ideology have nothing to do with it, or it could mean he's starting to bend in response to the constant onslaught. My sense of the guy is that, while he's pretty plastic, there will come a point where he won't bend anymore, and he's smart enough to know he has very little room to bend when it comes to the economy. But really, the left is going to have to put an end to this "socialism" talk. It takes instruments off the table just when we need them most, and the fact is, the country is facing problems -- healthcare, a collapsing economy -- that free markets have never been able to solve on their own.
