White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has dodged reporter questions 9,486 times in the 444 briefings he has given since taking the job in early 2011, according to an analysis by Yahoo News.
The analysis, which scoured the transcripts of Carney’s briefings since February 2011, discovered that the press secretary has developed 13 favorite tactics to shut down or defer an unwanted inquiry.
His favorite? ‘I don’t have the answer.’ He’s used a variation of that one more than 1,900 times.
English: Jay Carney giving a press briefing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, ” The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” But better warning is from George Washington: ” Government is …force. Like fire, it’s a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
Today, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked about the Eurozone bailout agreement on Cyprus. Jay Carney’s answer was interesting. Instead of saying it’s wrong for the government to tax people’s bank deposits, instead he said:
” …our general proposition is that..we..believe it’s important for Europe to take steps necessary, as they have been, to both grow and deal with sovereign debt issues.” He also said they are monitoring the situation right now and also told the press to ask the Treasury Department regarding the issue.
Cyprus is a small Mediterranean island with 840,000 people and while it has a thriving off-shore banking industry, it’s also facing a debt crisis that plagues the entire Eurozone. On March 16, the European Union and IMF announced a 6% to 10% tax on bank accounts that led to people running to their ATMs over the weekend and the closing of banks to stop the panic.
In 1992, the European Union members signed the Maastricht Treaty with a pledge to cut their country’s deficit, spending and debt. None of the countries took the pledge seriously and in 2008 the European debt crisis finally exploded that led to spread of bailout agreements for countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Irelend, Portugal and now Cyprus.
According to Congressional Budget Office, by 2025 US government debt will be twice its GDP and government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the federal debt will consume all federal revenues with military and other spendings to be paid by borrowing. When Obama came in, the debt was $10 trillion and by 2016 after his second term, it’s going to be $20 trillion.
Copyright 2013 Ketchie V. Schauf
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