White House: Obama Reined in Spending but Recognizes it’s Out of Control

Carney: ‘President Believes We Have a Spending Problem’ (The Hill)

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that President Obama does believe the country has a spending problem, a day after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it was “almost a false argument” to say as much.

“Of course, the president believes that we have a spending problem,” Carney said at his daily briefing Monday.

Carney went on to argue that the government’s debt was “specifically driven by” healthcare spending, and argued the Obama administration was attempting to address those issues.

“The fact of the matter is, we need to reduce our healthcare costs. Funnily enough, recognizing that fact, the president took action to do just that through the Affordable Care Act, which has been scored by the CBO to significantly reduce our healthcare costs going forward,” Carney said.

Carney also acknowledged “we need to do more” to rein in deficit spending.