Gaggling with reporters on Air Force One Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney alerted the press corps to a new story reiterating the point that President Obama has actually demonstrated unusual fiscal restraint, and warned them that uncritically reporting GOP tax-and-spend claims to the contrary amounts to “BS” and a sign of “sloth and laziness.”
“[T]he rate of spending — federal spending increase is lower under President Obama than all of his predecessors since Dwight Eisenhower, including all of his Republican predecessors,” Carney said, according to an official transcript. “That is a fact not often noted in the press and certainly never mentioned by the Republicans. “[T]his President has been — has demonstrated significant fiscal restraint and acted with great fiscal responsibility. That is also why he has put forward a balanced plan to further reduce our deficit and debt by over $4 trillion….. I simply make the point, as an editor might say, to check it out; do not buy into the BS that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint [sic] with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.”
