Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer labelled President Barack Obama’s push for an end to government austerity “an assault on the dictionary,” calling the idea that the U.S. government doesn’t spend enough money a ludicrous concept.
Krauthammer appeared on a Fox News’ panel Friday, along with Weekly Standard columnist Steve Hayes and former Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers. “Special Report” host Bret Baier asked Krauthammer about the president’s new call to reverse government “austerity” by increasing government spending in his proposed 2015 federal budget.
“He’s never been interested in lowering the deficit,” Krauthammer explained. “I think that was clear. We had a lot of discussions over the five years where some people on the panel kept saying, ‘Oh, he really wants to get the bargain.’
“But Kirsten is right,” he continued, “it contradicts the reason he ran for president. It’s to change a lot of things in society, to give people stuff like health care, et cetera. That’s the vision he had — social Democratic — and reducing the deficit was never on the list.”
“Second, on this idea of austerity — you know, we’ve talked about Obama assaulting the constitution,” he said. “This is an assault on the dictionary. This is a guy who ran $4 trillion worth of deficits in three years and the deficit that he now touts as the triumph of austerity is the highest, higher than any deficit in the history of the country preceding him.”
“So this is a free spending administration, and the only reason it’s been reduced is because he went from three times the highest deficit in history,” Krauthammer concluded. “And when you start at that point, of course, everything is a reduction.”
[h/t RCP]
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