After 2 years of touting shovel ready projects--admits to NYT there is no such thing.
video
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report/transcript/second-thought
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
We?ve got shovel-ready projects all across the country .
To start helping states and local governments with the shovel-ready projects.
We are seeing shovels hit the ground.
Shovels are breaking ground and cranes dot the sky.
There are almost 100 shovel-ready transportation projects.
Shovels will soon be moving earth and trucks will be pouring concrete.
Bla Bla Bla
BAIER: Here is what he told New York Times magazine, quote, "He let himself look too much like the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat." That was a quote from the president. He realized too late that there is "no such thing as shovel-ready projects when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax break as stimulus and let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts so it could have been seen as bipartisan compromise."
Well that raised eyebrows here in Washington and here's a Democratic senior aide saying those comments just give our candidates who are already trying to defend their vote on the stimulus one more booby-trap to deal with in debates.
We're going to bring in our panel early tonight. Let's bring them in, Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of The Weekly Standard, A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. What about this, Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: That is quite an admission. A year-and-a-half and half a trillion dollars later he says well these things that I talked about endlessly don't exist. It's not actually surprising he doesn't know a shovel ready project doesn't exist because having never worked in the private sector he wouldn't be sure what a project is and there isn't shoveling at Harvard Law School. So I can understand this is one of the greatest oops in American history.
And it's going to be hard for a Democrat when you show one tape against the other, and say you supported $1 trillion offered by a president who didn't know this stuff isn?t going to happen? And that is probably why. Since everybody expected it would have an immediate effect on unemployment and it didn't this is probably one of the reasons why. Things weren?t shovel-ready.
The other admission I think is even worse. He said he ended up looking like a tax-and-spend Democrat. Obama and his staff really think this is all about appearances and communication. That he isn't really a tax-and-spend Democrat, but he didn't communicate it or, as the vice president said today, it's too hard to explain, meaning that the American electorate is too thick to understand it.
He is a tax-and-spend Democrat. He spent $1 trillion and we are going to have borrow or tax it on the stimulus. He will spend $2 trillion to $3 trillion on healthcare, to borrow or tax it. Cap-and-trade -- that's what he is and why electorate is against him. It's not appearances. It's substance.
video
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report/transcript/second-thought
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
We?ve got shovel-ready projects all across the country .
To start helping states and local governments with the shovel-ready projects.
We are seeing shovels hit the ground.
Shovels are breaking ground and cranes dot the sky.
There are almost 100 shovel-ready transportation projects.
Shovels will soon be moving earth and trucks will be pouring concrete.
Bla Bla Bla
BAIER: Here is what he told New York Times magazine, quote, "He let himself look too much like the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat." That was a quote from the president. He realized too late that there is "no such thing as shovel-ready projects when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax break as stimulus and let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts so it could have been seen as bipartisan compromise."
Well that raised eyebrows here in Washington and here's a Democratic senior aide saying those comments just give our candidates who are already trying to defend their vote on the stimulus one more booby-trap to deal with in debates.
We're going to bring in our panel early tonight. Let's bring them in, Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of The Weekly Standard, A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. What about this, Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: That is quite an admission. A year-and-a-half and half a trillion dollars later he says well these things that I talked about endlessly don't exist. It's not actually surprising he doesn't know a shovel ready project doesn't exist because having never worked in the private sector he wouldn't be sure what a project is and there isn't shoveling at Harvard Law School. So I can understand this is one of the greatest oops in American history.
And it's going to be hard for a Democrat when you show one tape against the other, and say you supported $1 trillion offered by a president who didn't know this stuff isn?t going to happen? And that is probably why. Since everybody expected it would have an immediate effect on unemployment and it didn't this is probably one of the reasons why. Things weren?t shovel-ready.
The other admission I think is even worse. He said he ended up looking like a tax-and-spend Democrat. Obama and his staff really think this is all about appearances and communication. That he isn't really a tax-and-spend Democrat, but he didn't communicate it or, as the vice president said today, it's too hard to explain, meaning that the American electorate is too thick to understand it.
He is a tax-and-spend Democrat. He spent $1 trillion and we are going to have borrow or tax it on the stimulus. He will spend $2 trillion to $3 trillion on healthcare, to borrow or tax it. Cap-and-trade -- that's what he is and why electorate is against him. It's not appearances. It's substance.