Happy Monday folks,
There are bad interviews, and then there are BAD INTERVIEWS. Yesterday morning, while most of us were battling the cold of February, Representative Nancy Pelosi was battling both herself and the facts on Fox News Sunday.
First, while Pelosi admitted “that sequestration is a bad idea all around,” she did not believe that if it were snuffed out that it should be replaced by any form of spending cuts. Why? Because naturally, she claimed, it is “a false argument to say we have a spending problem, we have a budget deficit problem.” Mmmmkay.
Host Chris Wallace mentioned inconvenient facts to the Congresswoman, such as government spending averages about $3.5 trillion per year and that discretionary spending has gone up a whopping 14 percent in four years! Wow, that’s a spicy meatball! Representative Pelosi merely suggested of the budget outlook: “it isn’t as much a spending problem as it is a priorities [issue].”
Well, if it’s a “priorities” problem, where do the Pelosi priorities lie? Of course, with massive tax hikes! The House Democratic Leader referred to the recent $650 billion fiscal cliff tax increase as “a very good thing.” A very good thing? Even if it means cloaking the meaning of policy, as Pelosi did when she tried to bizarrely claim that the “Buffett Rule” isn’t a tax increase (which of course even the great Politifact has overruled). If that wasn’t pants on fire enough for you, Pelosi then claimed that common-sense entitlement reforms like raising the age of Medicare eligibilitywouldn’t save taxpayers any money. I mean, come on now.
Still, there was more Pelosi Policy Power to come through the airwaves. Astoundingly, Leader Pelosi was unable to keep her constitutional amendments straight, confusing the first and second amendments.
The only thing missing from the terrible performance was a criticism on the questions and somebooing from the peanut gallery. Maybe next time.
Seize the day,
Mark Bednar
@MarkBednar
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On The Radar
Economic Growth
Sen. Cardin Tells Federal Workers To “Put A Face” On Sequestration. “Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) on Friday asked workers at the National Institutes of Health to help ‘put a face’ on the the deep automatic spending cuts known as sequestration that will kick in if Congress doesn’t agree to a deficit-reduction plan by March 1.”
The Tax Deal That Simplified Nothing. “But by the end of the year, efforts in both the House and Senate to overhaul the tax code, simplify it and strip out many bewildering and contradictory tax breaks might bear fruit. That’s because both political parties have an incentive, although not the same incentive, to move forward.”
U.S. Trade Candidate Zients Faces Heat On Agency Reform Plan. “A White House plan to stick the Cabinet-level Office of Trade Representative in the Commerce Department could raise some tricky questions for Jeffrey Zients, a senior aide to President Barack Obama who was a key architect of the plan and is now seen as a front-runner to head that very agency.”
Immigration
Cantor: Initial Efforts On Immigration Reform Should Start With Children. “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Sunday that Congress should begin to address immigration reform by looking at legislation to legalize those brought to the U.S. children. ‘The best place to begin I think is with the children. Let’s go ahead and get that under our belt, put a win on the board so we can promise a better life for those kids who are here due to no fault of their own,’ Cantor said on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press.’”
Condoleezza Rice Forming Bipartisan Immigration Group. “Rice, a political science professor at Stanford University in California and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is setting up the group with former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a Republican, and two Democrats, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, the source said on condition of anonymity.”
Health Care
Forget The Governors: Are Doctors Ready For The Medicaid Expansion? “Those low reimbursement rates are often cited as the reason that about a third of doctors say they are not accepting new Medicaid patients. One recent study found that two-thirds of Medicaid callers had trouble securing an appointment with a specialist, compared with 11 percent of private insurance subscribers.”
Pelosi Opposes Changes To Medicare Program. “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi remains opposed to raising the eligibility age for Medicare or cutting benefits for recipients, effectively ruling out any House Democratic leadership support for changes to the popular entitlement program.”
X-Factor
Atlantic Council Releases List Of Foreign Donors For Hagel. “The Atlantic Council on Friday released a list of its foreign donors after Republicans demanded the financial information from Defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, who is chairman of the think tank. The Atlantic Council’s president and CEO sent a seven-page letter to Hagel Friday that included a list of foreign corporations, governments and government entities that fund the organization.”
This & That
The 55th Annual Grammy Awards Presented In GIFs
Colbert Touts His Sister’s House Bid
Judge About Westminster Dog Show Dismisses Doubts About Fairness