Debate: Former Obama Economic Adviser Tries to Convince Sean Hannity that America Is Better Off Four Years Later
The former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbee, joined Hannity to debate President Obama’s economic record. While running for president, candidate Obama promised to cut the budget deficit his administration inherited by the end of his first term in office. Sean Hannity commented, “We’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar. He not only didn’t cut the deficit in half, but he has given us the largest deficit of any president in the history of this country.”
With over $5 trillion dollars in new Obama debt, Hannity asked, “Is he a failure?” Goolsbee retorted, “No Sean, what you left out is the primary reason that the deficit did not go down substantially in the last year, is that in a totally bipartisan way, Republicans and Democrats agreed in 2010 to extend all the Bush tax cuts knowing perfectly well that the deficit was going to remain high.”
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Hannity told Goolsbee that he’s forgetting that for President Obama’s first two years in office, he had control of the Congress and passed a stimulus, passed health care and passed budgets but, “he failed and we have fewer Americans working today.”
They sparred over the interpretation
of the president’s pledge to cut the budget in half. Goolsbee maintained, “His budget that he proposed would do that, and the Republicans and Democrats agreed at the end of 2010 that they were not going to try to cut the deficit because the economy was still hurting.”
Hannity reacted, “That’s like read my lips no new taxes.” Exactly the opposite Goolsbee shot back, “Read my lips we won’t have taxes go up, and everybody agreed … Sean, you’re expressing surprise that the deficit remained high, when in a bipartisan way they both agreed knowing perfectly well it would keep the deficit high.”
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After a back and forth, Goolsbee said, “I’m not disputing that at the outset when [President Obama] steps in in the middle of the deepest recession of our lifetimes that they engage in things that make the deficit bigger for a two year period. The question is why did it not come down by the end of his first term? And the answer, as you know very well, is that they chose the bipartisan way to extend trillions of dollars of Bush tax cuts.”
Hannity said, “That’s like blaming ATM machines and kiosks and tsunamis and earthquakes and Fox and talk radio and Sean Hannity for his failures.” Goolsbee said the country is “definitely better off” than it was four years ago and made that point using his self-deemed “weird” analogy with pumpkins.
Check it out below:
