Monday, March 4, 2013

David Gregory almost got it right

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, November 28, 2012. Boehner voiced optimism that Republicans could broker a deal with the White House to avoid year-end austerity measures, saying on Wedn "Sometimes, even I believe my lies." During Speaker of the House John Boehner's Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, host David Gregory did a fairly good job of holding Boehner's feet to the fire and challenging some of his more obvious misstatements ... but Gregory did miss the boat on this one:
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: Now listen, we've known about this for 16 months. And yet even today, there's no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester. And over the last 10 months, House Republicans have acted twice to replace the sequester. There are smarter ways to cut spending than these automatic across the board...

DAVID GREGORY: But Mr. Speaker that's just not true. They've made it very clearly, as the president just did, that he has a plan that he's put forward that involves entitlement cuts, that involves spending cuts, that you've made a choice as have Republicans to leave tax loopholes in place. And you'd rather have those and live with all these arbitrary cuts...
(OVERTALK)

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: Well, David that's just nonsense. If he had a plan, why wouldn't Senate Democrats go ahead and pass it?

Gregory pivoted to tax revenues at that point, missing the very obvious response: Senate Democrats did vote for a plan. But Senate Republicans filibustered it. Just as they've filibustered every major piece of legislation that's come down the pike over the past four years.

So close, Mr. Gregory, so close.

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