Sunday Sound Bites

Obama's peeps pumped positivity into comments on the nation's future fiscal health and former Veep Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration's actions in Iraq on this week's Sunday talk show circuit. AIG's bailout bonuses and taxing employee health plans also made the cut for top topics. Here's the round-up for all the late-rising readers out there.
Meet the Press
Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) and Dr. Christine Romer, chair of Obama's White House Council on Economic Advisers, shadowboxed on whether the "fundamentals of the economy are strong," to borrow the words of Obama's former opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Topics during Romer's conversation with MTP host David Gregory
roamed from her bold prediction that we'll start to see the light at the end of the recession tunnel in the second half of the year (she's "not a fortune teller" but says her projection is in line with private economic forecasts) to whether we're going to need a second stimulus (siding with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Romer thinks talk of another package is premature).
Next up was Cantor, one of the GOP's primary bulldogs against the White House. Peppering his answers with powerful stats about how bad the current economy really is (e.g. in the time it took you to read this last sentence, another job was lost). He thinks the most important step forward is to get the flow of credit rolling again, both by private investments and restoring consumer confidence. What won't help? Spending, especially on "pork barrel" earmarks like a train between the two happiest places on earth and R&D to reduce pig odor.
Cantor stumbled, though, when Gregory pressed him on how many earmarks he himself has voted for over his career in Congress -- a figure Democrats have placed in the neighborhood of 46,000. He conceded that perhaps, yes, he voted for that pork, but shot back that he and Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) have repeatedly called for a moratorium on the practice.
Cantor didn't really shed any new or innovative light on the GOP's game plan. He assured viewers that Republican critics of Obama's economic policies will soon come up with a counter plan ("David, David, the Republicans will have a plan.") and said that everyone shares the blame (just a little bit) for the current financial failure. Thanks, captain obvious?
State of the Union
Former Vice President Dick Cheney joined CNN's John King to defend the Bush years and warn of the dangers lurking in the era of Obama.
Cheney stood by not seeing any red flags leading up to the current economic crisis. When pressed with the numbers -- Bush entered the White House with a $128 billion stimulus, left with $1.3 trillion in debt and saw the number of Americans in poverty and uninsured jump between 4 and 5 million each -- he countered with the argument that 9/11 took precedent over all other domestic policies during Bush's first term and beyond. On the topic of Iraq. Cheney stood by the company line that the now nearly six-year war has paid off, even if the intelligence leading up to the invasion didn't prove to be true.
Summers stayed on message with the cautious-optimism that has characterized Obama's dealing with the ecnomy. "It's going to take time," he repeated yet again. Summers dismissed Times columnist Paul Krugman's recent criticism of the president's plans, but said he wanted to leave the actual outlining of that plan to the president and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. And as for the Republican critcisms? Bring it on, Summers said:
"We'd love to see Senator McConnell's concrete alternatives that gets closer to a balanced budget. The situtation the president inherited of nearly $1 trillion deficits, before he did anything, came at a time -- came at a time when it was a Republican president and a Republican Congress that were making the decisions."