NYT's Landler Sighs Along With Obama on 'Frustrating,' 'Unreasonable' 'Intransigence of the Republicans'
Chief New York Times “Caucus” blog writer Michael Shear hosted the latest edition of the paper’s “Caucus” podcast (there's no direct link) Friday, where he, political reporter Jeff Zeleny, and White House reporter Mark Landler agreed that Republican candidate Michele Bachmann was wrong to dismiss concerns about possible financial consequences resulting from a failure to raise the debt ceiling.
About four and a half minutes from the end, Landler took side in the budget-cutting battle, emphasizing how far Obama had come toward the Republican position with “very significant cuts,” and sympathized with the president’s “frustration” over the “unreasonable” “intransigence of the Republicans.”
Mark Landler: "And it’s also worth pointing out that the president and Democrats are putting some very significant cuts on the table. There’s talk of somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion, $1.7 trillion in cuts in all kinds of discretionary spending, in the Pentagon budget. The president has put Medicare on the table, which is not something that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are happy about. He’s even talked about looking at Social Security, albeit he’s been very vague and careful to say he won’t do anything to really change the program in a fundamental way. So the fact of the matter is the Republicans had already gotten the administration a long way toward making really a historic deal that they could have held up as a real victory, or could still hold up. And I think the frustration the president has, is ‘Look, I’ve come three-quarters the way to your position, and you’re not willing to give me that last 25 percent that I can use to say to Democrats there is something in this for you.’ So I think the intransigence of the Republicans is really beginning to wear on him and just strikes him as more and more unreasonable."
[Audio snip here]
Of course, Obama’s “very significant cuts” are so far just rhetorical; they have yet to be put in writing and remain vague. It's pretty nervy to describe Obama as being frustrated with the G.O.P., given how he and the Democrats have gone so long without seriously engaging the issue of budget cuts (if they are in fact serious this time), while the Republicans have offered specifics.
- Clay Waters's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
SO another Obama prison wife
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 2:46pm.
cries because his man is not getting his way!! BOO FREAKING HOO get the tissue! Tell your boy Barry to WRITE DOWN A PLAN and then MAYBE we can start from there! You see over on the right hand side of the isle... they know you guys LIE........... (Not really a suprise) and you live in a land of Fairies and Unicorns.... (Frank and Weiner?.... ) that you believe that you can wave a magic wand and the debt and pollution and conservatives will all disapear. WELL WE CONSERVATIVES are NOT GOING ANYWHERE!
Duct tape alert!!! Another GANG!!!
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:22pm.
so now we have the "Gang of Six" working to "find a solution"
What the hell is wrong with these people???
Do any of these Republicans really think ANY of these "spending cuts to be determined later" are going to happen???
A pox on whoever the three Republicans are!
Go ahead, morons, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again!!
REPUBLICANS NEVER NEVER LEARN!!!
OK. Rant over. For now.
This is the same M.O. the
Submitted by mattm on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 2:52pm.
This is the same M.O. the Dems in Minnesota are using. Dayton has shut-down state government because the budget the republican legislature passed only increased spending by 6% and didn't include tax increases. They originally wanted a spending freeze, so the increase represents a republican compromise.
Governor Dayton took the occasion of this situation to shut-down government, accuse the republicans of intransigence, and embark on a GOP-bashing tour in hopes of ousting the GOP majority in 2012. Dayton is politicking when he should be governing, which, IMHO, is nonfeasance.
I predict a federal government shutdown for the exact same reasons. This is how the Dems operate. Clinton did it in 1995, now they're doing it again.
Intransigence?
Submitted by jon_torlin on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:03pm.
Wow, so it's intransigent when you use common sense?
Ok, call me intransigent!
Along with Racist, etc etc etc.
-Jon
So let me get this right.
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:25pm.
If you don't want to add more tax burdens and want to cut the spending you're just a stubborn dolt. However, when you only want to raise taxes and increase spending, when you have negative money no less, you're Milton Friedman.
Do I have it right?
You have it right
Submitted by PoolPlayer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:55pm.
This is what the MSM sells - When there is an impasse and the dems want the repubs to bend over and take one for the team, the MSM calls the repubs stubborn dolts when they're just not in the mood!
Let's see if I've got this right -
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:44pm.
Obamugabe shuts down all Gulf drilling, orders Interior not to issue new drilling permits and no approvals on existing rigs, and now wants to take away legitimate deductions for research, development, and exploration. But the GOP are the ones who are intransigent and unreasonable? 'Zat right?
I don't know...
Submitted by Order270 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:03pm.
...but to appears to me the Republicans are busting their tails off piecing together this mess of a budget left by Pelosi while Obama calls for photo-ops to pose and say, "No".
The only time his Party of Blame does anything is if something actually does go right and he's right there, tripping over himself to swoop in with teleprompter in-tow to take full credit.
Obama promised that he would change the way Washington . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:18pm.
. . . does business. He even stated in 2008 that he thought extending the national debt ceiling was the wrong thing to do; now that he's in the WH, he's had a change of heart.
Compromise is the way Washington has operated, and that has worked us into a $14 trillion national debt.
Well, the game is changing. Much to the Democrats dismay (and some ol' Repiblicans, too), the 'intransigient' Republicans -- especially those freshman who came in with the 2010 election on a Tea Party wave -- are holding fast. Compromise is not an option in their playbook.
Gal, apparently you haven't
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:31pm.
Gal, apparently you haven't looked at the Drudge Report. See my comment above.
And get your duct tape ready!
the proposed $3.75 trillion in savings over 10 years contains $1.2 trillion in new revenues.
[ ]
a separate measure would reform the Social Security retirement program to stabilize its finances for the next 75 years.
Yeah, like that'll happen.
The only way that he dimocats
Submitted by jdhawk on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:26pm.
The only way that the dimocats get away wth lying about this entire subject, is via a media that will do anything to make conservatives look bad and anything and everything to make liberals look good.
This whole sorry state of affairs has been perpetrated by liberals lying and then, the media swearing to whatever the latest lie is.
Note, that while the "controversy" seems to surround raising or not raising taxes, taxes will be raised significantly in at least three ways in less 18 months. At that time both the Bush tax cuts expire and the duhbamacare taxes kick in. The third tax is the forward creep of inflation that causes one to get more and more pay, but the pay doesn't actually pay for more goods and services, but raises the additional pay begets more and more taxes from every level of government.
Nevertheless, even with the above significant tax increases, spending has in the past, is now, and will continue to far outstrip tax revenue.
Even if the "rich" were taxed at 100% at the Federal level, the additional revenue would still not make up for the shortfall this year alone between spending and tax revenues.
Note also, that there are no "cuts" in any of the Republican plans. What each of the plans does is slow down spending increases. Note, also, as had been said many many times, the only presidential plan was defeated 97-0 in the Senate and the senate itself has failed to come up with plan one.
So did no one get the frank/weiner joke?......
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 5:33pm.
Geez.....
Silly jarhead.....
Submitted by QMCS on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 5:58pm.
We dont want the "Frank" or the "Wiener".
:)...nice try though...
Well I didn't say we wanted them.....
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 6:08pm.
Just that they exsist are important in Obamaland!
All they do is talk.
Submitted by CobraMan on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 7:26pm.
"There’s talk of somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion, $1.7 trillion in cuts in all kinds of discretionary spending, in the Pentagon budget."
That's the problem, all that the Democrats have offered is "talk." There's no actual plans, no actual budgets, no actual figures, just talk. Well, the Democrats have talked the talk on spending reductions for years, decades, now, with absolutely no reductions to show for, but well over a TRILLION dollars in spending increases to show for in the last 3 years alone. It's time for the Democrats to walk the walk, or take a hike. The choice is theirs.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.