The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Transcript: President Obama Press Conference

East Room

8: 03 p.m. EST

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening. I have a brief statement, and then I’ll take a question . . . uh, excuse me. Jay, what?

CARNEY: [from side of room] Sir, you agreed to take five questions.

OBAMA: Oh, right. Everyone, a follow-up counts as a separate question. Don’t screw your colleagues.

As I have said repeatedly since attending Basuki Elementary in Jakarta, America’s national debt is unsustainable. My budget confronts head-on what the scrawny fella from Indiana recently called the new “Red Menace.”

Like New Jersey’s Fat Man, I understand the realities. You heard it here: OMB’s first draft for FY 2012 came in at $8.7 trillion. I told them that was unacceptable. After weeks of chainsawing through the bloat, OMB Director Jacob Lew finally delivered the $3.73 trillion budget I just submitted to the House.

I see some heads shaking. Look, the final product does indeed represent a savings of almost $5 trillion off the initial proposal. Extrapolating from similar budget scenarios each cycle through FY 2016, and taking into account hyperinflation and debt servicing, we stand to chop about $60 trillion in spending over the next five years. In so doing, we’ll keep the deficit monster at bay a while longer.

If my budget is adopted as is, we’ll continue to maintain our slow and steady spiral towards insolvency, happening sometime around 2030. But if it’s tampered with in any way, we risk returning to the time before FDR when “individual responsibility” was code for “Stand on your own two feet.”

I promise you, we will not go backwards on my watch.

Working together, we will postpone the day of reckoning until most of us are dead and gone. Easy? Of course not. We must resist the siren call of painful choices; we must stop gazing longingly at the shore as riptides pull us out to sea.

Yesterday, after burgers and fries on the Truman Balcony with Michelle, I stood alone at the railing and looked south towards the Washington Monument, an unlit cigarette dangling from my lips [cough cough]. I thought about Ronald Reagan’s “sunny uplands” vision. For a brief moment, off in the distance and deep into a second term, I could almost discern the overcast lowlands where our country’s future really lies.

My fellow Americans, I need your help to get us there.

Now I’ll take some questions. Start with, um, Jack Tripper.

Q: Jake Tapper, sir. ABC News. Word’s coming in that thousands of Muslims stormed Trafalgar Square and demanded the dissolution of Parliament and Queen Elizabeth’s abdication. Your reaction?

OBAMA: I urge Prime Minister Cameron to listen to the people and begin an orderly transition to a government responsive to the desires of unassimilated British Muslims. Uh, wait a sec. [reads message on BlackBerry]

Before I say anything else, I’ll want confirmation Tripper’s report is accurate. CIA Director Panetta is monitoring MSNBC as I speak to determine what, if anything, is going on across the pond. We’ll keep you informed. Um, Artie Crapsinger?

Q: Martin Crutsinger, sir. Associated Press. A rumor’s floating around you plan to chop $22 billion from Homeland Security and give it to Organizing for America to promote education in flyover states like Wisconsin. True?

OBAMA: Yes, Artie. Osama bin Laden isn’t interested in Nebraska. DHS is wasting money protecting the vast red wasteland–I mean, heartland. Yesterday, I told Secretary Napolitano I was halving her allocation and charged her with safeguarding urban Democratic strongholds in the lead-up to November, 2012. Next question, hmm . . . oh, Henry?

Q: Ed Henry, sir. CNN. Experts say exploitation of a newly discovered 200 billion barrel oil field in North Dakota could drive the price of gasoline down to $1 a gallon eventually, threatening your push to plug-in hybrids like the Chevy Volt.

OBAMA: I’ve just declared the whole area a national monument, Ned.

Q: But if the field extended into Manitoba and cheap fuel from Canada flooded the nation, would you raise federal gas taxes to thwart predatory underpricing?

OBAMA: No, I wouldn’t, not in these difficult times. Lisa Jackson at the EPA has anticipated “oversupply” scenarios. She’s ordered refineries to develop costly new eco-friendly formulas for all grades. If necessary, they’ll be mandated to keep pump prices hovering at $4 or more a gallon without a tax hike that would hurt the middle class. Last question goes to, um, Will Flora.

Q. Bill Plante, sir. CBS News. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said today . . . .

OBAMA: Hold on, Phil. My cell’s vibrating. Only three people have this number. Gotta take the call.

[steps away from the podium, whispering] Hey, Sonia. How ya doin’ girl? No, actually not a good time, but . . . . Whassup? They voted to fast-track the PPACA challenge? Damn, just like Bush v. Gore. Kennedy will go with the wingnuts. The individual mandate’s toast. We’re done. Oh, we’re not? Six for a quorum? I didn’t know that. Uh huh. Good thinking. I’ll arrange it.

[hangs up, dials] Michelle, set up four cots in the Residence. Kagan, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsberg will be staying with us for a while. How long? Until Scalia retires.

JAY CARNEY: Thank you, Mr. President.

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Title H/T: Ron Futrell