Mayor Bloomberg spent much of Monday trashing the Washington culture that’s bungled the debt crisis – then turned up his critique on Tuesday to single out the man he says is most to blame: President Obama.
Our Erin Einhorn reports:
“The President can solve the problem and that’s what he should do,” Bloomberg told Andrea Mitchell Tuesday in an appearance on MSNBC.
He noted that “there’s no heroes here,” and that the fault of the problem rested with “both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and both sides of the aisle” but stressed that Obama has powers that others don’t have.
“All president has to do — and I’m not trying to hold him more responsible, but he is the chief executive, he was elected to lead this country —
All he’s got to do is stand up and say ‘I will veto any extension of any of the Bush-era tax cuts.’
“
Bloomberg has called for abolishing the cuts for all income brackets – not just the rich as Obama has proposed.
“That takes taxes off the table,” Bloomberg said. “Then the Republicans don’t have an issue and they can start working with the Democrats on how you come up with intelligent cuts because if you’re going to ever close the deficit, you have to increase revenues and reduce expenses. Anybody that says you can do with one or other… either they’re stupid or they’re just not telling the truth.”
Bloomberg ducked a question from Mitchell about whether Obama could have prevented the failure of the supercommittee, saying “I’m not about the past,” but he lamented that Obama hasn’t done enough to fix the problem.
“It requires leadership, and leadership starts with the chief executive,” Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg is chief executive of a city with a strong mayor and a weak City Council that’s controlled by a close ally, so he doesn’t have to deal with the partisan gridlock that Obama does but he said the president can do better.
“Barack Obama… is a very smart person and he said ‘I campaigned on change’ and he said he was going to do what is right for this country and I’m telling you here – maybe he’s got a better idea, but I haven’t heard any other idea than blaming each other and outlining the problem to everybody else.”
Obama needs to wield his veto pen, Bloomberg said.
“You want a concrete solution, just veto anything. If the President said that today, then the whole debate about taxes is over,” Bloomberg said. “People might not like it, but it’s over. Then we can focus on how you cut our expenses.”
To cut expenses, Bloomberg called for the proposals laid out in
, which Bloomberg said offers a road map for how to cut the budget without damaging safety nets, national security or hurting business.
“The opportunity is right now,” Bloomberg said. “And this opportunity, if the President doesn’t take it, is going to go away.”
