Nancy Pelosi Says We Have A Budget Deficit Problem, Not A Spending Problem

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – If you would like to hear babble, then you must listen to this again.  See if you pick up the contradiction.  You don’t even have to look for it.  It’s readily apparent.  This may even be a great teachable moment for your children.  Check out today’s audio and transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Let’s go to the digital media files.  [mocking Pelosi] “We don’t have a budget problem.  Are you kidding?  What we have is a — I mean, we don’t have a spending problem.  I mean, I don’t know what I mean.”

[start audio file]

Nancy Pelosi: …which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future. Cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful. They are what are affected by the sequestration. It is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address.

[end audio file]

Mike:  [laughing] Wait a minute.  Andrew, did she just say what I think she just said?  Did she successfully contradict herself in one paragraph?  Didn’t she say we don’t have a spending problem; we have a budget deficit problem?  You’re a college educated young man.  Where would you think a budget deficit problem comes from, from what action?

AG:  From spending too much money.

Mike:  No, surely you jest.  I have to hear that one again.  I think you and Young Eric were monkeying around with the digital media file.  You edited that together, didn’t you?

AG:  No edit here.  We can play it again.

Mike:  If you would like to hear babble, then you must listen to this again.  See if you pick up the contradiction.  You don’t even have to look for it.  It’s readily apparent.  This may even be a great teachable moment for your children.  You may say: Look, I’m going to play something for you.  Watch this video.  I know she’s scary, very scary.  All right, don’t watch it, just listen to it.  You’re listening for a direct contradiction.  See if you can pick it out.  You can quiz your four-year-olds on this and they’ll get it.  Roll it.

[start audio file]

Nancy Pelosi: …which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future. Cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful. They are what are affected by the sequestration. It is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address.

[end audio file]

Mike:  [mocking Pelosi] “It is almost a false argument to say that we have a budget, uh, spending problem.”

AG:  I don’t think she even thinks it’s a contradiction.  I think she used them as two totally separate things.  If you ask her that question, “Aren’t you contradicting yourself?” I think her response would be they’re different.  Spending and budget are two completely separate things.

Mike:  But you get a budget deficit because you spent too much.

AG:  That point evades her, I think.

Mike:  I like your verbiage there, that point evades her.  That is very well put.  I think I shall write that one down so that I may use it again in the future.  Is she being evasive?  Folks, I could go line by line here with this insane woman.  I actually figured this out last night, Andrew.  If you divide $4 trillion by the number 535, calculators can’t even figure this out.  My iPhone calculator crapped out.  It gave me a formula.  I actually had to take a couple zeros off so that I could get a number.   The amount of spending one individual member of Congress would be directly responsible for is $7.46 billion.  Think of it like that.  Each one of the 535 — 100 senators, 435 members of the House of Representin’ — is responsible for $7.46 billion.  Most of us have a hard time managing and spending 74.5 thousand dollars.  In other words, $75,000 grand is a lot of money to spend in a year.  You’ll lose track of it unless you’re monitoring it in real time and keeping an eye on it.

Put yourself in a position where you’re spending $750,000.  You may then want to hire accountants, bookkeepers, legal minds and what have you.  It may take three or four people just to spend $746,000.  What about spending $7.4 million on your own?  Again, put it in terms of business spending.  It probably could take up to, I don’t know, 25, 30 people just to figure out how to judiciously, frugally, spend in an austere and productive manner $7.46 million a year.  Do you think it would only take 25 to judiciously and prudently spent $74 million?

The reason I’m asking this is, and I stopped at the number of employees in the mid-20s is because each individual member of Congress has about — they’re all different — 20 to 25 staff members.  That’s how many people work for any individual member of Congress.  If Ms. Pelosi with her $7.46 billion take — of course she says it’s not a spending problem — and as I just broke it down, people that are in business would probably not attempt to spend that amount of money with just a small staff, or probably couldn’t spend that amount, with a small staff of a mere 25 people.  How does a member of Congress do it?  The answer to the question is they don’t.  They don’t do it very well.  Instead of actually being responsible for it, what do they do?  They pass responsibility down the chain of command.  Let’s get some lobbyists in here.  What they do is they give it to an agency and the agency spends it.  That’s right.  The error in scale is so magnificent here it almost, for lesser men, defies explanation.

You know what my problem is with all this?  What I want to know is why other people don’t see this as I see it.  Let’s just walk through this really quick.  Andrew, crack your microphone.  I want you to walk through this with me.  You’re a young person.  We elect members of Congress and they’re supposed to be chosen from amongst the citizenry, right?

AG:  Ideally.

Mike:  Ideally, that’s right.  Why would you anoint or why would you appoint one member from amongst you to go somewhere to a faraway space or faraway place to spend on your behalf $7.5 billion?  Wouldn’t you think that it would be far better if that number had a couple zeros shaved off it, and maybe, as I demonstrated with my walking you through how many employees it would take, management-types it would take to spend $7.5 million and then $75 million?  Don’t you think it would be a far more prudent act to not allow someone to spend that much money on your behalf?  Wouldn’t you think that you are opening yourself up for all manner of error, bribery, deceit, corruption, maladministration?  Just name your pejorative you want to throw in there.

AG:  I guess the concern that I would have, not necessarily a concern, but as evidenced over the past couple months and this weekend with the snowstorm and Connecticut declared a state of emergency, the idea of FEMA and having the federal government in control of this large sum of money that they then dole out to where they see fit hasn’t proven to be the most effective way to remedy a disaster or tragedy.  If you look at it as a minute example of why the largeness of government sometimes is not the most effective way to solve problems, I would just say FEMA and recovery from, whether it be a storm or a tornado, that sort of thing.

Mike:  Yes.  In other words, he agrees.  The whole operation is totally out of scale.  To her, of course it doesn’t seem like spending real money.  That’s not real money, that’s paper.  I don’t even know where it comes from.  It’s not gold.

AG:  But then when you have the difficult decision or hardship to go through, you then as a city or county or state have to, I don’t know if man up is the right verbiage to use, but you have to kind of man up and say we will not take federal dollars during this time of need.  We’ll do it ourselves and hopefully that sets the example.  Otherwise, we’re in a cyclical pattern of we’ll give our taxpayer money to DC and hope that during the next tragedy they give us whatever percentage that we need back, although it’ll go through levels of bureaucracy that ultimately waters it down.  Until someone steps up and says, “We won’t take it; we don’t need it,” there’s no incentive for others to move towards that path of self-government.

Mike:  The little towns in Connecticut that got bombarded with 40 inches of snow, don’t their citizens know what is best for them?  Do they need anointed, almighty federal overlords that are so much smarter than they to tell them how to run a freaking snowplow?

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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