*Obama Versus The Facts: *Obama's press conference last Tuesday got
FactChecked
<http://www.factcheck.org/politics/obamas_prime_time_pitch.html>.
President Obama sometimes strayed from the facts or made dubious
claims during his hour-long evening news conference March 24.
. He said his budget projections are based on economic
assumptions that "are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip
forecasters out there are saying." Not true. The average
projection by leading private economists is now for
substantially less economic growth than the administration's
forecast assumes.
. He said he is reducing "nondefense discretionary spending" to
less than it was under the past four presidents. Not true. His
own forecast for the final budget of his four-year term puts
this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or
either Bush.
. He said he was "angry" about "inexcusable" bonuses paid to AIG
executives. But he glossed over the fact that his own aides
insisted on watering down a Senate-passed amendment that might
have prevented payment of such bonuses.
. He repeated that his budget is projected to cut the federal
deficit in half by the end of his term. That's true, but
deficits also are projected to shoot up again later unless big
policy changes are made.
Those don't strike me as small errors. And, as always when we find
these discrepancies, we have to wonder whether the politician believes
what he said. I don't know whether Obama believes all of those dubious
claims --- but I fear that he believes some of them.
(I suppose that I will have to look over the transcript and see if I can
find even more mistakes.)
- 11:04 AM, 27 March 2009
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