NEWSLANC NOTE: Presidents seldom speak at length and for attribution without a prepared text, and President Barack Obama had understood that he was speaking for background purposes when he was interviewed by the Des Moines Register this past Tuesday. Because of a misunderstanding, the White House gave permission for the entire interview to be published. There is at least one place where the President apparently misspoke, by saying “spending” rather than “taxes”. We recommend the reading of the entire interview.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: …“So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and my opponent — at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the deficit — but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business.
“It will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I’ve been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in spending [taxes], and work to reduce the costs of our health care programs.
“And we can easily meet – ‘easily’ is the wrong word — we can credibly meet the target that the Bowles-Simpson Commission established of $4 trillion in deficit reduction, and even more in the out-years, and we can stabilize our deficit-to-GDP ratio in a way that is really going to be a good foundation for long-term growth. Now, once we get that done, that takes a huge piece of business off the table.”
