Hard truth slips out in the budget dog-and-pony show

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Last week's news was dominated by jabberwocky about President Obama's proposed federal budget for 2013. As usual, a parade of Cabinet officials trooped up to Capitol Hill for hearings in which they dutifully defended the fourth spending blueprint submitted to Congress by the chief executive. For the most part, such hearings are dog-and-pony shows in which Democratic and Republican lawmakers ask predictable questions and the presidential appointees regurgitate talking points prepared for them by White House political maestros. Then everybody goes back to business as usual, which for too long has consisted of finding new ways to spend trillions of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.

But when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared before the Senate and House budget committees, he twice departed slightly from the usual script. First, in response to questions from Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Geithner acknowledged the lack of long-term deficit reduction in the Obama budget, saying "even if Congress were to enact this budget, we would still be left with, in the outer decades as millions of Americans retire, what are still unsustainable commitments in Medicare and Medicaid." Then on the House side, in response to budget chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Geithner conceded the same point, but added, "we're not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is we don't like yours."

[RandyM]

Both Congress and the administration are so full of self-serving asses that I'm afraid we'll never get enough good people in there to straighten out this country. Even with a Republican administration, House, Senate and Judiciary, there still wouldn't be enough statesmen to fill a baseball dugout.

[Geee]

Sad, but so true @RandyM.