Appearing on Meet the Press earlier this morning with the always condescending, well at least if he’s interviewing a Republican guest, Chuck Todd, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, said there’s no hope of achieving a balanced budget this year. Of course, that should hardly come as a surprise to almost anyone other than the suddenly fiscally conservative Chuck Todd.
‘No, we won’t be able to balance the budget this year, but we’re working on trying to get it to balance within the ten-year budget window, which is what Republicans in the House and the Senate have traditionally done the last couple of years.”
A smirking Chuck Todd also pressed Mulvaney regarding his thoughts on raising the debt ceiling with a series of ‘gotcha’ questions:
Todd: “Debt ceiling. We hit it on Friday. Extraordinary measures by the Treasury Secretary will mean a couple more months. You were a tough nut to crack on the debt ceiling when you were Congressman Mulvaney. Why should people who were like minded with you who basically said ‘hey look, I’ll give you that debt ceiling but I want real cuts, I want real deficit reduction, I want a real plan.’ I think at one point you said I’ll raise the debt ceiling in exchange for a balanced budget. You’re not going to be making that ask this time, are you?”
Mulvaney: “I have voted to raise the debt ceiling before as most people in Congress have. Traditionally, you go back to the 1920’s and 1930’s, the debt ceiling debate has been used to try and step back and say ‘why do we have a deficit problem, why do we have a debt problem and how can we fix it.’ So we’ll be coming forward with ideas to raise the debt ceiling but at the same time try to address some of those long-term reasons that we have the debt in the first place.”
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Mar 20, 2017.
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