In his second appearance on the Fox News Channel since departing CNN last month, former Clinton adviser James Carville told Sean Hannity why President Barack Obama hasn’t shifted towards the political center:
CARVILLE: Well first of all, I don’t know right now it’s a very good idea to change. The economy is starting to recover, and I think the best thing we can do is try to get this sequestration thing out of the way and continue to let the economy heal. I mean, that is basically that the Republican Fed chairman [Ben Bernanke] said yesterday testifying before the Congress. You know, it’s been very difficult time coming out of this recession and its different time 1996, more like 1997, 1996 when the economy was different kind of world and the president and Newt Gingrich were able to do things. That world doesn’t exist today. We’re just coming out of the worst recession ever.
HANNITY: Can I just gently disagree? I’m having a hard time — the news that came out incomes for most Americans now dropped the most in 20 years. Last quarter we just had a contraction, the last quarter of 2012 — there adjusting to 0.1 percent, no growth. We have $6 trillion in new Obama debt. We got 18 million more Americans on food stamps. We got one is six Americans in poverty. We spent all this money. We’re robbing from our kids — tell me where it’s getting better because I don’t see it.
CARVILLE: Well, first of all the economy was shrinking about 7.5 percent when the president took office. Secondly, not many in the world is doing much better. I mean, I know it doesn’t help a lot. All the economic research coming out the financial crisis, it’s horrific and that’s what we’re going through now. But the jobs and numbers are better from some numbers — more numbers are better than not good. I’m not — I don’t like this recovery that much either.
HANNITY: There is not recovery.
CARVILLE: Well, there is some recovery. Sequestration according to macroeconomic advisors at Goldman Sachs is going to take a half pointed off of GDP. Why are we doing that now? It doesn’t make any sense.
Hannity went on to argue that sequestration wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of the debt and deficits, .
“The deficit is actually starting to go down,” Carville said. “We can’t have a long-run problem, but you know the health care cost numbers are looking good. Right now we have to keep to the extent we have a recovery — keep it going.”
