White House Spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that President Obama is aware the country has a spending problem, walking back a Sunday flub by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“We have to make a judgment about what — how do we get growth with jobs?” Pelosi said on Fox News Sunday. “That’s where the revenue comes from . . . So, it isn’t as much a spending problem as it is a priorities [problem], and that is what the budget is, setting priorities.”
Responding to a question about Pelosi’s statement, Carney assured reporters, “Of course the president believes we have spending problem.”
But President Obama has also reduced non-defense discretionary spending to the lowest levels since Eisenhower was president, Carney added.
Obama has also addressed the primary driver of debt — healthcare — with Obamacare, Carney said, pointing to a Congressional Budget Office report projecting Obamacare will lower health care costs.
But the health care law is already raising health care costs, according to Forbes. Premium costs are going up; according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report, the average family premium climbed 4.5 percent in 2012. Not to mention unintended consequences of the law, like employers cutting hours to avoid those higher premiums.
