The Dire Warning from CBO
Friday, August 24, 2012
The Dire Warning from CBO and All of the Above
Energy
JAKE TAPPER: The Congressional Budget Office report is -
it's a pretty dire warning about what this nation faces, and yet I
didn't hear the president mention it yesterday. Is there a reason
why?
JAY CARNEY: Well, I think I put out a statement and - which is
the White House's view and the president's view. The president
talks every day that he's out there, as he was yesterday, about
what we need to do to help build our economy, help it to continue
to grow, help it to continue to create jobs. And yesterday and the
day before he was focusing on the need to continue investments in
education because he firmly believes that education is a matter of
our economy, that it is an economic issue, and -
TAPPER: I'd - so that's not really what the
Congressional Budget Office was addressing. They were talking about
-
CARNEY: No, that's what - sure, about the -
TAPPER: - actually, the president - yeah, the president
talked about education, he talked about Todd Akin, he talked about
Mike Jordan's - he talked about a lot of -
CARNEY: Well, and he talks, as you know, all the time about what
we need to do to - specifically to help the economy grow and create
jobs, and his belief that we need to take a balanced approach to
address the kinds of fiscal challenges that are necessary. I mean,
the so-called fiscal cliff that the CBO report addressed, as you
know, is being brought about by a vote of Congress, with bipartisan
majorities in each house, to enact the Budget Control Act, and -
which the president signed into law, which is -
TAPPER: Sure, but it's not as if the president is some
kind of innocent bystander, here.
CARNEY: No, I'm not suggesting he is.
TAPPER: He's the president of the United States. What
-
CARNEY: Well -
TAPPER: Here's the question: Do you think the president
is showing as much economic leadership on this issue as he could
be?
CARNEY: Yes, and I think that what I talked about in answer to
an earlier question is that, look, we recognize that there's an
enormous debate, a big conflict between the president and the
Republican leadership in particular over whether or not we need to
extend and, in some plans, give even greater tax cuts to the top 2
percent of American earners, the most well-to-do Americans. That
debate is unlikely to be resolved between now and the election. The
president talks about how the - in many ways, the voters will help
resolve it by the election.
But what we can agree on, and this goes right to the issue of
the fiscal cliff, is that we should absolutely extend tax cuts for
98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of American small businesses
tomorrow or the day that Congress gets back. And that would
demonstrate to the American people and to people around the world
that despite our differences on some very important issues, we can
come together and do the practical thing and the sensible thing to
help our economy grow, to avert some of the concern over the
so-called fiscal cliff.
And I think that would give people a lot of reassurance about
the capacity of their leaders in Washington after the election to
continue to address these challenges and to ensure that we don't
have to - that the sequester does not come about, because it was
never designed to take effect. It was designed to be so onerous
that it would force action. And hopefully, that will take place.
But what we do know is that we agree on this. The middle-class tax
cuts, which I think this is a little-known fact, are the single-
biggest component of the so-called fiscal cliff. If we pass that,
that would have a very positive impact on - both in the raw numbers
sense but also, I think, psychologically because it would
demonstrate that Washington is willing, despite the partisan
differences here, to do the right thing by the American people and
by the American economy.
TAPPER: Why isn't the president on Capitol Hill telling
-
CARNEY: I think - well, I don't - I'm not aware that anybody's
up on Capitol Hill. But the - but the president's position -
TAPPER: Why isn't he talking - even talking about
this?
CARNEY: He has - he talks about this frequently. He talks about
it all the time. I mean, he was focusing on education the last
couple days, but you know, numerous speeches in the last several
weeks, he talks very much about - I mean, you saw him repeatedly
talk about the need to extend middle-class tax cuts. And he'll
continue to do that. You know, I'm standing here today speaking for
him and for the White House and the administration, talking about
the need to do that. And we would welcome, in a heartbeat, a
willingness by Republican leaders in the House to schedule and pass
- schedule a vote on and pass an extension of the middle-class tax
cuts. And then we could all agree that our differences on the
remaining 2 percent remain. That we don't agree on that issue and
that that might have to be dealt with after the election. But if we
took that action on the 98 percent, it would demonstrate a
seriousness of purpose, it would - and it would be very helpful to
both the American people who would have that assurance and
certainty about their tax cuts - 98 percent of the American people
- and to the economy writ large.
TAPPER: I wanted to follow up on the energy question.
Why do you and the White - and the president continue to refer to
it as an all-of- the-above energy approach, when there are
certainly components that Republicans are pushing for that you
reject, such as the Keystone
CARNEY: Well, the - well, first of all, the Keystone pipeline is
a - we haven't rejected anything. t's a process that's under way at
the State Department that was delayed because - for two reasons:
one, because of concern by folks in Nebraska, including the
Republican governor, about the original proposed route; and then
because of Congress' - the House Republicans' insistence on
including it as part of the payroll tax cut extension. That is a
second - that is a specific issue. The all-of- the-above approach
is we are - as you know, this administration has approved other
pipelines, including transnational pipelines. It has approved
expanded drilling both on water and on land, federal and public. It
has approved -
TAPPER: You mean types of energy; you don't
mean -
CARNEY: Well, I don't mean that every single project imaginable
has - that would require some sort of federal approval has
necessarily. But I mean, every form of energy has enjoyed the very
aggressive support of this administration. And that includes
nuclear, wind, solar and biodiesel and, as you know, oil and
gas.
-Jake Tapper, ABC News