Obama tried to help the budget supercommitte. Really.

In September, the president proposed a budget to the supercommittee that included budget cuts meant  to please Republicans. Yet some say he failed to "reach across the aisle."

|
Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP
President Barack Obama, seated with outgoing White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, gestures while meeting with the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Bernstein argues that some Republican' accusations that Obama didn't offer any help to last year's failed deficit supercommitte are simply untrue.

I’m pretty old school in that I believe elected officials are always worthy of respect, so I tried to be respectful in this dust up with Senator Pat Toomey on CNBC this AM.  The thing is, it’s important not to let anyone—elected official or otherwise—mislead like this, especially when their version is just so contradictory to the truth.

Sen Toomey, who was a member of the failed supercommittee, argued that the President simply wouldn’t offer any help to the committee, nor would he countenance any cuts to entitlements.

Except for this:

In September, the President proposed a budget to the supercommittee.  There’s a chapter in that budget document called “Health Savings” which proposes about $250 billion in Medicare savings and about $70 billion in Medicaid savings (both over 10 years).

When I pointed this out to the Senator, he complained about the lack of bipartisanship, reaching across the aisle, etc.  But again, as I pointed out, the President’s proposals were exactly that—a reach across the aisle to an issue—entitlement cuts—about which R’s have been clamoring and frankly, as I noted in the clip, go well beyond many D’s comfort zone.

I’m sorry, but with respect, it is impossible to take such politicians’ calls for bipartisan compromise seriously when, on national TV, they refuse to acknowledge such efforts.  The President is, at this point, well within his rights to say, “I tried.”

RELATED: Gas prices and five other liabilities for Obama in 2012

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Obama tried to help the budget supercommitte. Really.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/On-the-Economy/2012/0118/Obama-tried-to-help-the-budget-supercommitte.-Really.
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe