Obama Budget Director Won’t Answer If White House Would Prioritize Social Security Payments…
No way they’re giving up the fear-mongering card.
CNN’s Candy Crowley, HOST: “More immediately, you’d have to make some spending priorities — payment priority decisions: Social Security benefits, and federal worker pay, and defense contractors. What are your priorities should the debt ceiling not be raised on the 2nd, when you have the bills that immediately come due? Social Security checks, federal worker pay, defense contractors?”
Jacob Lew, WH Budget Director: “Our plan is for Congress to do its work and the President to sign into law legislation that will make it possible for the United States as it always has, to keep its obligations. We’ll be ready to deal with whatever happens. There is no plan other than meeting our obligations.”
CROWLEY: “Surely you must have discussed priorities, though, we have to pay this?”
LEW: “The truth is this is a different situation the United States has ever faced. We’ve never gone into a situation where we didn’t have enough money to pay our bills. We borrow 40 cents on a dollar right now. And if the time comes when we lose the ability to pay our bills, there will be a cash flow issue that is very real, and that’s why it’s critical that Congress take action before August 2nd.”
CROWLEY: “Would you allow it to happen that those the Social Security checks would not go out? Would you allow that to happen?”
LEW: “As the President has indicated, it’s not a question of what we allow and what we don’t allow —”
CROWLEY: “But you get to decide priorities. There will be some money —”
LEW: “There will not be enough money to pay all the bills.”
CROWLEY: “Of course not, that’s why I’m talking about priorities.”
LEW: “I think that once someone gets into the business of trying to ask about setting priorities it misses the question. Which is that it’s unacceptable for the United States to be in a place whether it’s Social Security recipients, or a soldier or somebody who is just owed money by the government can’t be paid because we have not done our job.”
Posted by ZIP on Sunday, July 17, 2011, at 10:33 am | 
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There is no guarantee that they wont shut off our oxygen even if we give in to their demands.
Again, why should we comply?
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Pretty obvious the enemy is in the wire. Call in an airstrike.
Obama can’t even trust his buddies in the lib media anymore. Sad.
As humans, we should all know that it doesn’t matter what we do, if we are depending on humans, whether ourselves or others, we are all due for a let down, about 6′ down if nothing else. There is only one thing a human can do that will last forever and there is only One that knows enough to reward or righteously judge us. It doesn’t matter who we are, what we do, or why we do what we do God knows and our case will appear on His docket one of these days.
When you’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar you spend, YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST THE ABILITY TO PAY YOUR BILLS!! Where did this guy take math? Obama University? WTF???
Jacob Lew, WH Lie and Deceive Director.
There, now that reads better.
Well, he already sent the UN their money. Probably all the foreign aid, too. Priorities.
Ah yes, threatening old people and soldiers.
How can any sane person who is paying attention not see that these people are the enemy?
I’m on SS and I say cut it off you Kommie POS. That’ll get you votes…for the GOP!
@Terri
Bingo! Right on the money!
Call his bluff. For a long time each day is closer to a tipping point, I would like to believe that not taking care of the people on SS would be the straw that breaks the camels back.
StrangernFiction now w/so many people living off benefits, they stay home and watch shit like The View. They don’t pay attention, and their brains get fed w/crap that they believe.
I know many people that are still in their own little worlds, taking care of the kids, going to work, completely oblivious to what is happening in the world. I often hear “I hate politics” or “I don’t follow politics” and “What does it matter? The politicians are going to do what they want anyway”.
And God forbid you mention any notion of doing emergency preparedness. That is so beyond their comprehension. I get accused of being paranoid, so be it. I am paranoid, I am a racist, and I am bigot w/a little redneck thrown in. Name call on me all you want. I don’t give a shit. I listen to my gut.
I wish there was a way to bring the blog people together to actually meet in person. If it weren’t for the blogs I would lose my mind.
I always knew you were a paranoid racist bigot with a farmers tan Axel.
Wanna drink some beer later?…..maybe BBQ some chops and cuss Sherman
Payments will depend on what will get them the most political mileage, whether it is social security payments of bailing out unions.
I thought I would do a little research on yet another scumbag in this administration and here is what I found out about Mr. Lew. Early career
Lew began his career in Washington, D.C. in 1973 as a legislative aide. From 1979 to 1987 he was a principal domestic policy advisor to House Speaker Tip O’Neill, where he served at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee as Assistant Director and then Executive Director. There he was responsible for domestic and economic issues including Social Security, Medicare, budget, tax, trade, appropriations, and energy issues.
Lew practiced as an attorney for five years as a partner at Van Ness, Feldman and Curtis. His practice dealt primarily with electric power generation. He has also worked as Executive Director of the Center for Middle East Research, Issues Director for the Democratic National Committee’s Campaign 88, and Deputy Director of the Office of Program Analysis in the city of Boston’s Office of Management and Budget.
From February 1993 to 1994, Lew served as Special Assistant to the President under President Clinton. Lew was responsible for policy development and the drafting of the national service initiative (AmeriCorps) and health care reform legislation.
Lew left the White House in October 1994 to work as OMB’s Executive Associate Director and Associate Director for Legislative Affairs. From August 1995 until July 1998, Lew served as Deputy Director of OMB. There, Lew was chief operating officer responsible for day-to-day management of a staff of 500. He had crosscutting responsibilities to coordinate Clinton administration efforts on budget and appropriations matters. He frequently served as a member of the Administration negotiating team, including regarding the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
President Clinton nominated Lew to be Director of the OMB, and the United States Senate confirmed him for that job on July 31, 1998. He served in that capacity until the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001. As OMB Director, Lew had the lead responsibility for the Clinton Administration’s policies on budget, management, and appropriations issues. As a member of the Cabinet and senior member of the economic team, he advised the President on a broad range of domestic and international policies. He represented the Administration in budget negotiations with Congress and served as a member of the National Security Council.
Until June 2006, Lew served as the Executive Vice President for Operations at New York University and was a Clinical Professor of Public Administration at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service.
In June 2006, Lew was named chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit.
Lew co-chaired the Advisory Board for City Year New York. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution Hamilton Project Advisory Board, and the National Academy of Social Insurance. Lew is also a member of the bar in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
How about that? This guy is a Haaa-vaaaaard man just like our president and a fucking Socialist at that. School trained under Bill Clinton (and possibly under the desk as well). And last but certainly not least, he is a member of the CFR with it’s ONE WORLD global goal.
More criminals to prosecute come 2013!
Lew started sucking at the government trough at age 18, as a “legislative aide.” On graduating from Hahvahd he was appointed “principal domestic policy advisor” to House Speaker Tip O’Neill, and served at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee as Assistant Director and then Executive Director.
In 1993 Bill Clinton named him as one of his “special assistants”, and in 1995 appointed him director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position he held for three years. During this time, to all appearances he proposed virtually nothing to help avert the current financial crisis. So he has a huge personal stake in pretending that since *he* did nothing to avert this crisis, *no one could possibly have seen it coming.*
And notice the way Lew doggedly refused to answer Crowley’s simple question, either one way or the other. Rather, he dismissed the question (easy with a supportive interviewer) by saying “I think that once someone gets into the business of trying to ask about setting priorities it misses the question.” IOW, “You’re missing the point if you ask that.”
CNN’s Candy Crowley got the hint and let it drop.
Lew is one of the guys who *had to have known* that the deficit-spending situation was completely, unavoidably unsustainable. And had we *started* paring some of the entitlements by just a couple of percent back then, we’d have a lot more breathing room today. But of course, he said and did nothing.
No surprise, then, that today he’s doing his damnedest to deflect any pointed questions.
What a buffoon. A Poobah promoted above his level of competence.