Rep Fattah To Cavuto: It would be fine it I could just get a sentence out. I know you've got a lot of time to beat up on the President
Reported by Guest Blogger - June 4, 2011 -
By Brian
On Your World yesterday (6/3/11), Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) debated Neil Cavuto on the economy. Fattah did a terrific job of keeping his cool, challenging the Fox News agenda and making his points while Cavuto got more and more steamed up. Fattah is our latest Top Dog.
In response to Rep. Fattah saying he wants more money spent to stimulate the economy, Cavuto said, “You’ve got to be kidding… You've got to put the shovel down."
Fattah was unfazed. "We have millions who are not working. We need to work harder to get them back to work."
"Doing what? What would you do?" Cavuto asked.
"I think we should work to increase manufacturing, we should work to improve our infrastructure,” Fattah said.
"That's more spending by the government… right?" Cavuto said.
Fattah said, "We should have the best airports in the world, the best infrastructure in the world… Generations before us, they’ve invested in bridges and roads and highways."
"But we don’t have any money to invest. We're broke," Cavuto objected.
Fattah had a good answer. "The cost of doing nothing is to allow our economic competitors to get ahead of us."
Cavuto said he’d rather Congress “take the same amount of money… back to taxpayers, and let them have at it."
Fattah was again unfazed. “Taxpayers have gotten tax breaks under President Obama, the largest in our country's history."
"It seems to be working like a charm, so give them more," Cavuto quipped.
Tired of being interrupted, Fattah said, "It would be fine it I could just get a sentence out. I know you've got a lot of time to beat up on the President… Let's lead on science, technology, innovation,… rebuilding our infrastructure, and creating manufacturing jobs."
Cavuto tried to prove he’s a “fair and balanced” basher by saying he bashed George W. Bush for the bank bailouts in 2008, calling them "a horrible idea."
But I’ll bet Cavuto never called a Republican’s ideas "a can of spit” which is what he said about Fattah’s. “This playbook has failed," Cavuto said, adding that he likes the idea of "giving people… substantial amounts of money back."
Chaka said President Clinton "raised taxes on the wealthy, we invested in education and in infrastructure and our environment." He said the economy created "25 million jobs,” and "balanced the budget."
"Now you're making stuff up,” Cavuto said. We had a recession in the end of the Clinton years."
In fact, there was not a recession under Clinton, as Crooks and Liars demonstrates very nicely. Also, Media Matters notes that two different governmental agencies found the stimulus raised employment. The CBO estimated 1.4-3.6 million jobs were created and the White House Council for Economic Advisors estimated 2.1-2.5 million jobs were created.
Comment: Want a solution to a problem? For Cavuto, it’s always cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes!
