Nancy Pelosi: "It is Almost a False Argument to Say We Have a Spending Problem"

Is Nancy Pelosi the dimmest bulb to ever serve in Congress? The most dishonest?? Or both??? In less than fifteen minutes on Fox News Sunday, former Speaker of the House Pelosi said almost more stupid and dishonest things than Joe Biden has hair plugs. But, to preface Ms. Pelosi's lies, prevarications and outright whoppers, we have the dishonest statement from the White House that (federal) budget cuts will result in the "damaging layoffs" of teachers, law enforcement officers and food inspectors.

Really? How many teachers in your public schools are employees of the federal government as opposed to being funded by the cities and communities that their schools are in? And why, you might ask yourself, out of the hundred of thousands of government bureaucracies, departments, employees and expenditures, why it is that every time the public demands a little more financial responsibility from their city, state and federal politicians, that the first thing that happens in return, is a threat to cut police, schools and safety, such as fire, or in this case, food inspection? Let's see a show of hands of all you who think that unnecessary expenditures and waste have been eliminated at every level of government and the only places left to cut are those which affect you most personally? Anyone?? Anyone at all???

The US Department of Education, for example, "currently administers a budget of $68.1 billion in discretionary appropriations" alone. This is in addition to the mandatory budget, which in 2006 was $56 Billion. And to think that for hundreds of years, we educated our kids without sending a single dime to Washington to educate them or expecting Washington to send back a single for it either.

Since Jimmy Carter created the cabinet level Department of Education in 1980, have the nation's test scores improved or continued to slide? Thirty three years of ineffective bureaucratic spending, regulations and pork, with nothing to show for it, except more government intrusion, hundreds of billions of dollars later, and the federal government cannot find any place to cut the budget except food inspectors and the military?

And still, the gems of wisdom have not even begun to fall from Ms. Pelosi's lips! Put on your hip waders, folks, and let us begin!

The first thing I want to point out is the same phony claim that Obama made during the last campaign, that he and the Democrats had "cut $1.6 Trillion" from the budget. Ms. Pelosi repeats the talking point/lie:

"We've had plenty of spending cuts. $1.6 Trillion..."

There is one question that I have been dying to hear anyone in the MSM, or now Fox News, ask of Mr. Obama or Ms. Pelosi:

"You say you've cut the federal budget by $1.6 Trillion dollars. So, in real terms, how many fewer dollars will the federal government spend next year than it did this year?"

If these cuts were more substantive than Monopoly money, then cutting the budget by X amount of dollars should result in spending X amount less than the year before. Right? But all of Obama's budgets and projected budgets increase spending year after year after year. To paraphrase Ms. Pelosi, what she said is not the "gospel truth"*. And speaking of phony, Obama ran all through 2012 claiming we needed a "balanced" approach to the economy, with both spending cuts and tax increases. As soon as he was re-elected, he forgot all about "balance" and pushed for higher taxes, without even any lip service to specific cuts that could or should be made. Need I remind you that in 2008, candidate Obama promised to go through the budget "line by line"** to eliminate waste and unnecessary spending. San Fran Nan used the word "balance" over and over again (it must focus group nicely!), but shied away from actual spending cuts like Dracula from holy water.

Most of us who have or ever had a credit card or loan, know that the only way to decrease the amount of interest we pay is to reduce the balance. We certainly do not decrease interest by increasing spending. But, Ms. Pelosi doesn't think (you could just go with the bold part of this sentence) that we have a "spending problem". Her exact words:

"It is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem"

This is despite Chris Wallace pointing out, that you could confiscate all the wealth of all the wealthy and still not cover our current rate of spending, which would at least imply, to most sane people, that when your spending exceeds your wildest expectations for income, that you have a "spending problem". Ms. Pelosi, despite all your phony budget "cuts", spending continues to increase, making this next statement you made (also without bursting into flames) that much more of a lie:

"We're sick and tired of paying interest on the national debt."

If you were truly sick of it, San Fran Nan, wouldn't you make genuine budget cuts that actually reduce the amount of federal spending, rather than increase it, so that we might some day have the money to pay off the principle, or at least not have to continue to borrow money every day to cover our current spending?

You pretend that all of the problems were inherited from Bush, despite the fact that the really profligate spending started when you became Speaker of the House, which grew exponentially during Obama's first term. You cite pretend jobs that were created by the stimulus spending, when the truth is the US has steadily lost more jobs than were "created" under Obama. And your only solution is to throw even more money at the same failed policies of the past and insanely hope for a different outcome this time? Or do you merely line the pockets of yourself, your family and your cronies, knowing that none of your "solutions" will work, but at least "you've got yours"?

Oh, and one more thing, Nanny Nancy: You claim that monies spent for education are "investments made for the future". We started making "investments" by the billions in 1980 for the Department of Education. We've been making billions of dollars of "investment" in the future for thirty three years. At what point in your personal portfolio do you stop wasting money on investments with no return? Any of them for 33 years? Why don't you accord middle class taxpayers the same courtesy?







*To be honest, I did not catch this the first time I heard the interview. When I did catch it the second time, I was quite frankly surprised that she did not immediately burst into flame.

**"Line by line": Code words for "Somewhere between the first tee and the eighteenth hole"

Cross posted at LCR. The video from the Fox interview posted at LCR, but not here.