Pelosi, Democrats in denial about spending

Well, not exactly denial. More like attempting to spin the facts to suit a political agenda.

The Hill:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the looming sequestration is "a bad idea all around" and called for a balance of spending cuts and closing tax loopholes in order to avoid it.

"It is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address," she told Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday.

The Democratic House leader said she backed a "big, bold proposal," to curb long-term spending, and, short of that, a plan that ended subsidies for large oil companies and eliminated loopholes in the tax code.

"It isn't as much a spending problem as much as it is priorities," she said at another point, arguing that tax subsidies were a better target than cuts to programs such as education.

"Nothing brings more money to the Treasury of the United States than investment in education of the American people, so we have to recognize that," she said. "Cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful and they are what are affected by the sequestration."

Both Democrats and Republicans say they want to avoid the sequestration, an across-the-board cut to both military and non-defense programs that looms on March 1 if no action is taken. But Republicans argue the bill should be replaced solely by cuts to spending, while Democrats want to see a mix of cuts and increases in revenue.

"Almost" a false argument to say we have a spending problem? Only a liberal could say something like that with a straight face.

But maybe she's serious. Perhaps Democrats see nothing much wrong with trillion dollar deficits (ooops! Only $830 billion for this year says CBO). We really don't know because the Democratic Senate hasn't written a budget in 3 years.We'll see how serious they are about deficit reduction when they publish a budget next month.

How Pelosi can make the statement that education brings more money into the treasury than anything else is a mystery - especially the way the federal government spends education dollars. But the truth hardly matters when talking about "investments" - a weasel word in and of itself because Democrats don't want to use the term "government spending."

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.