QOTD from Robert Gibbs: "You can't spend more money than you have"

ROTLFMAO – this from the administration that just released a budget for fiscal year 2011 that will lead to record-breaking deficits (via Jim Geraghty):

Here’s the relevant part of the transcript, just so no one thinks he’s being taken out of context:

Q His rhetoric, the words he chose today, talking about how we’ve got to stop spending money like it’s Monopoly money and deficits matter and all that — it sounds like he’s saying that but saying, but we’ve got to wait on that part of it. In other words, he’s, like, talking at cross purposes to the budget he actually submitted.

MR. GIBBS: No, no, look, we — look, we all understand we had to take extraordinary measures, again, to get this economy going. Are we spending more money on unemployment insurance than the President would like? Yes, on two accounts. One, it’s money that we’re having to spend, and having to spend that money means more and more people are unemployed. Are we having to spend money on a Recovery Act that, all things being equal, the President would like to not have to do? Absolutely. We have to get our economy moving again, we have to create jobs. That will improve our medium- and long-term deficit picture.

Understanding, too, that the President has also taken some extraordinary steps, Mark, in terms of pay as you go, the — we spent a lot of time in the past year talking about health care — a proposal that the President laid out a specific path for paying for. We are where we are today partly because of this economic downturn, but partly because for a long time we had two wars that we weren’t paying for. We had tax cuts that we weren’t paying for. And we had a prescription drug benefit that, although very worthy, we never paid for.

We have to return to some very common-sense principles that everyday Americans live by every time they go to the grocery store or want to go to the movies or cash their paycheck, and that is you can’t spend more than you have.

Translation: It’s Bush’s fault.

Toldjah so (not that it was hard to predict).

Related reading:

India Times – Analysts say Obama budget projections may be too rosy

Mary says:

February 1, 2010 at 7:33 pm

I have been telling my Democratic son this, “You cannot spend more money then you have,” for a year now.
I am glad someone else has quoted me. Even though it was Gibbs whom I detest.
What is wrong with these people?

NC Cop says:

February 1, 2010 at 7:52 pm

Dear God, are they serious?

I understand 95% of the media are in their back pocket, but do they really think we won’t notice their idiocy on things like this?!!?

Laura says:

February 1, 2010 at 9:41 pm

Whenever I hear a Democrat use the phrase “tax cuts we haven’t paid for” or some such, I want to scream. They have such a sense of entitlement towards OUR MONEY.

Carlos says:

February 1, 2010 at 11:18 pm

In other words, we expect all of you to line up, listen to what you’re being told, raise your right arm in front of you and yell “Sieg Heil!”, and go on about your lack of business and ignore what we’re actually doing.

If Der LiarMeister we’re actually serious about lowering unemployment and raising employment he would do what’s worked every time it’s been done in the last century: lower taxes (especially on the rich, since they’re the ones who hire) and get the government yapdogs out of the way and let business happen! But he’s not serious about it because his agenda is to take over the running of companies (big and small) in the country so that when they fail he can blame the incompetents and not the government.

Social democracy at its best!

Pig farmers who don’t know crap about what pigs they are.

ZippyTheWerewolf says:

February 2, 2010 at 7:08 am

Why do these people believe that we are buying their idiocy? Him and his boss are glib *censored censored censored* They behave as if they know more than everyone else, not to mention blaming Bush..it’s getting OLD.. and continue to shove their stale diatribes down our throat. This whole administration is a detriment to our country. What losers they are.

February 2, 2010 at 11:12 am

Notice Glub said “YOU” can’t spend more money than “YOU” have. That leaves the door wide open for the admin to drive a supertanker through their “fiscally responsible” ways.

Well, of course WE can’t, but that’s never stopped the guvmint from spending more of OUR money than WE have.

Pat says:

February 2, 2010 at 1:20 pm

Oh boy! I have three 20-something kids, and for years I have tried to teach them the difference between the RIGHT way and the WRONG way to manage their own money as well as their independent lives.

It appears that the Obama administration (and Gibbs is such a tool) does just the opposite of what I am trying to teach my kids: 1) there are consequences to your financial decisions, 2) live within your means (and know what that is), 3)when faced with a financial crush/crisis, take measures to increase your income and/or decrease what goes out, and lastly, 4) if you can’t pay cash for it, you don’t NEED it.

It’s a shame my kids have a better understanding of how to manage their money than the policy makers in our Nation’s capital.