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Obama’s OMB Nominee Tells the Uncomfortable Truth

By: Ben Domenech (Diary)  |  March 17th, 2011 at 11:55 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Heather Higginbottom, President Obama’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is a smart and honest person — which is probably why she found it so difficult, under questioning from Sen. Jeff Sessions today, to run interference for Obama’s pathetic solution to our deficit problems.

Watch the whole thing, but particularly note the end, where Sessions points out that the out years of Obama’s budget for FY2012 don’t actually “stabilize” anything — indeed, the deficit never falls below that $600 billion mark, a fact Higginbottom confirms.

Again, it’s not because what she said was wrong. It’s that what she said was true — she tried to avoid the discomfort of admitting that, but couldn’t.

The best part: how Sessions leans in like a kindly grandfather when he says “Does it, uh, uh, … do what you said?”

Via the Daily Caller.

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COMMENTS

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  • joepyne

    This is all nice, great theatre. But, none of us care about how well a Republican can make an Obama appointee, or cabinent member, look bad on CSPAN. What we want to know is when are they going to stop kicking the can down the road, and make Obama sign their proposed budget?

    Because of their cowardly fear of the media, and public opinion polls, all of this is meaningless unless they stand firm on the cuts they have already proposed. Cuts that really are a step back from what they originally promised.

    Until there is bite to their bark, I am not impressed.

    • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

      propose that Redstate conservatives DO, individually, specifically, to impact the outcome of the 2012 Republican primary elections and then the general elections so we increase the number of Republican FIGHTERS in the House and Senate? Is there anything that you can suggest that we conservatives can do, together, locally, to have an immediate impact on the incumbent Republicans who represent us and, for that matter, might also have an immediate effect on the Democrat incumbents? Other than just write articles about the news of the day?

      Thank you.

      ColdWarrior

    • http://twitter.com/bdomenech Ben Domenech

      If you think the President is going to sign any significant cuts, you’re smoking something. There is not a single thing they can do to “make Obama sign their proposed budget.” Period, end of story.

      • joepyne

        This is all bluff and bluster.

        Neither you, nor the Republicans, have any intention of actually fighting this guy.

        You don’t even believe his agenda can be stopped!

        Then what’s the point of this post? Entertainment?

        • Aaron Gardner

          Thus giving us the ability to force Obama to sign our budgets. He hasn’t given up the fight at all, he is just fighting the long war instead of allowing himself to become fixated on the current zeitgeist.

        • YnotNOW

          It is highlighting the problem (unsustainable deficits) again and again, so that eventually the public will understand that this is SERIOUS.
          It will take some time, but the support for painful cuts requires an understanding among the general public. Otherwise, entitlements will remain “the third rail of politics” and no one can touch them to actually make a difference.

          So make a show, build support among the public, and then we can get meaningful reform passed.

      • Kyle-MI

        You have it backwards. If Obama does not sign something in the budget then it doesn’t get funded. The GOP controlled House should have the upper hand here. All they should need to do is separately pass what they want funded and have separate bills for what they want cut.

        For example, take Planned Parenthood. They need to identify the broader program under which PP is funded and just pass a narrowly tailored bill on just that broader program specifically excluding PP. This should just leave Obama and the Dem controlled Senate with only two options. Either they can fund the broader program without PP or they can block the entire broader program so that not only does PP not get funds but nobody else (participating in this program) gets funds either. Let the Dems defend both PP as well as the extra spending that it would take to fund PP.

        You don’t need to close down the entire federal government just to defund PP (or any other unpopular program). We don’t have to redo the entire federal budget every time a program is added, so why do we need to when we want to cut a program?

        • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • rightwingmom52

    I was fortunate enough to hear him speak last Saturday morning and talk with him a few minutes afterward. He’s good on video, but even better in person. Very personable, respectful and at least appeared interested in what I had to say. Of course, I asked him to go back to D.C. and warn the house members for voting for siding with the Dems on HR 525 that conservatives were not happy. He said “Maybe it’s not as bad as you think,” By the time I finished giving my 2 cents worth, he said “Well, that does sound pretty bad. I’ll have to look into it.” So I plugged redstate and Erick and suggested he read the diaries written about it here.

  • http://www.jacklemoine.com Jack Le Moine

    The really big issue here is that the Budget official is trying to hide the truth instead of telling it. This is not the way to behave, especially in a national crisis.

    Which brings me to the really, really big deal here: trying to avoid corrective actions instead of making them.

  • Flagstaff

    confirm this little lady?

    She at least appeared embarrassed to have to sidestep the truth.

    • lineholder

      she will be politically crucified and “molded into their own image” by the Dems.
      Count on it.

  • popster

    seems to say a lot about trying to spin this garbage into a positive note. It is time to get off the potty and be honest with the numbers.

  • banzaibob

    Imagine giving the same kind of answers to a potential employer as MS. Higgenbottem gave. Do you think you would get the job?

    • earlgrey

      These are the people that want to run our lives from our health care to what kind of washing machine we buy. It is totally upside down and hammering home that message rather than just focusing on the personality flaws of the democrats is what we need to be doing.

  • renny

    He never has to sign a budget, even if the Dems. would let one be devised.

    Worse, Redstate seems to be setting Republicans up for the who-is-more-conservative test which helped elect Obama in the first place.

    We should let the left play the who-is-purer-than-thou game and decide to support the party that opposes the Dems. with the most members and most power. The idea that the US is going to create a perfect conservative party out of the Republicans is not logical and probably not even desirable. Sometimes you can’t get what you want, but you can get what you need. That’s Rolling Chinese philosophy.

  • michigan

    That Ms. Higginbottom is a ?good and honest person?. She feigned ignorance on facts that the Senator pointed out and then she admitted to. She?s nothing but another cog in the financial Ponzi scheme the administration is calling a ?budget?, running America to ruin. I wouldn?t vote to confirm her after this deceitful performance.

    • SoulEspresso

      That doesn’t mean she should be confirmed, but I think Ben’s point stands.

      • momma

        Does that define ‘honest’ nowadays?

        OK, there was one honest answer she gave:

        Sessions: Is there a single year in which we do not add more to the debt?
        Higginbottom: No.

  • unclefred

    The value of video like this for the 2012 campaign.
    Cut 1 – Obama stating categorically that his budget will not add to the deficit.
    Cut 2 – Geithner admitting that it will add to the deficit.
    Cut 3 – Obama stating it will not add to the deficit
    Cut 4 – Higgenbottom admitting that it will add to the deficit
    etc…

    Ads like these write themselves and are devastating. Because Obama’s own people are demonstrating that he lied. There are going to be a lot of them on a lot of topics.. Whether on youtube or cable or broadcast television. The audio will be on the radio.

    The reality is that, if we are to undo the damage, we need to take the WH in 2012. To do that we need to force Obama to run on his real record. Video’s like this make it very very difficult for Obama to avoid that and of course they are unanswerable because they are completely true.

    • acat

      I think he’s a one-termer, and not by losing the election… I expect another Dem to be the POTUS nom in 2012.

      Is why I keep saying that we need a candidate who is able to win against any Dem, not just one targetted at Obama. Remember, McCain was targetted at Hillary …

      Mew

      • unclefred

        You forget “the Chicago way”. In every sense this administration is a criminal enterprise. No political leverage or appeal will oust Obama. He will have to be beaten in a primary in which every spec of dirt will be thrown by both sides. Whoever primaries him will be covered in mud as will he. If Obama survives the primary he will have lost far more of the independents and probably a large chunk of the moderates that currently are still with him. If his opponent wins the primary he/she will be tarnished with independents and the minority vote will be lost, splintering the base.

        There will be no primary opposition, at least not one by a serious democrat contender.

        • acat

          And one of the other things about the Chicago Way is that nobody makes it to the top without having skeletons…. it’s a feature, not a bug… it lets the powers behind the thrones to depose a ruler who gets too much power. Let us say that they learned their lesson with Daley 1.0, who had too few skeletons for them to control….

          If the Dems decide that Obama is going away, they may need to arrange for a primary challenger to drop them – October Surprise style – but .. more likely, there’ll be a smoke-filled room and he’ll be told to bow out “or else”.

          Mew

          • unclefred

            I lived my first three decades in the shadow of Chicago and well remember the debacle following the end of the reign of the first Daley.

            I have no doubt that the people who selected Obama as their puppet have information that they intended to give them leverage. I question how effective it will be should they decide to use it. Deposing a president who does not wish to be deposed is different than deposing a mayor, a Senator or even a governor. Skeletons cut both ways, and Obama controls the DOJ. I suspect that it is more a case of mutually assured destruction, than control.

            In a way I almost hope that there is an attempt to force Obama out. Not only will it be fascinating to watch, but it offers a real chance to pull the mask off the liberals in a fashion that will damage their brand for decades. It would reveal corruption orders of magnitude worse than Watergate.

            In any event we’ll just have to wait and see.

          • acat
  • polittessential

    This kinda bold face lying is the trademark of the Obama administration. We must tell the liars that we see thru their stories and maybe then they will shape up. As the mass public lets leave them a bunch of messages doing just that. This one place exists that you can leave public messages to any politician. Check it out and hopefully (fingers crossed) some good will come of it! http://www.fastnote.com/uspolitics

  • readyfornov

    Heather Higginbottom should be asked to explain her Democratic Socialists of America connection?

    http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2011/03/heather-higginbottoms-socialist.html