Big admission from Vice President Joe Biden today.

“The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy,” Biden told me during our exclusive “This Week” interview in Iraq.

Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June — the worst in 26 years.

“The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited,” said Biden, who is leading the administration’s effort to implement it’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

“Now, that doesn’t — I’m not — it’s now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we’re in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we’re in,” he told me.

The vice president argued more time is needed for the stimulus to work.

“We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package,” he said. “The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money.”

Everyone misread the economy? I think not.

Read the transcript of the interview.




  1. aslightlycrankgeek says:

    #61 Fusion,

    Can you even write one post that does that does not veer off into attacking ‘right wing nut jobs’. And seriously, if you don’t want people to ‘shift the topic’ then don’t bring the crap up in the first place in order to insult people. — The fact is, Bush warned against the risks of lack of oversight of Freddie Mac and Fannie May 17 times. Ron Paul warned against it even earlier than Bush. Did Obama warn of anything like this when he was a senator? Yes, Bush should have pushed even harder for more regulation, but was the Republicans were overly concerned about appearing to take money away from poor people. So please, if you want to ‘shift topics’, that is not a topic you want to shift into if you are Obama drone you seem to be. You could probably stand to do some reading on that subject.
    nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html
    online.wsj.com/article/SB123137220550562585.html
    usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/10/06/democrats-were-wrong-on-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac.html
    youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

  2. bobbo, suffering from info overload says:

    Fusion==thanks. I think the truth is that on any given subject “every” opinion gets
    stated by someone somewhere. When the crap shoot of history takes its turn, we find winners and losers. The losers find excuses and the winners claim expertise.

    The numbers vary, its only over the long haul you win by betting on 7 rather than snake-eyes, but only in the long haul.

  3. Mr. Fusion says:

    #66, Slightly,

    New York Times

    Very true. There was nothing about assuming toxic assets that the Bush Administration forced them to assume later in 2006 – 2008. There is lots though about the American dream of home ownership, something pushed by Clinton and later by Bush.

    WSJ

    An opinion piece by, of all people, Karl Rove. And you are suggesting you want credibility? I won’t waste my time reading this.

    US Today

    Another opinion piece. The links backing up his statement are dead. The stronger regulation proposed by Bush was to move the FMs to being regulated by the White House instead of through Congress. Yet, for six years the Republicans had control of Congress and the White House and didn’t pass anything.

    The Ranking Member doesn’t control what legislation goes through the committee. Yet we continually hear about how Barney Frank stopped some legislation. The Republicans can’t admit it was THEM who dropped a bad bill.

    OH WAIT !!! It was that dastardly Barney Frank who finally passed a new oversight bill for the FMs in 2007, after the Democrats took control of Congress and Frank took over the Chairmanship of the Banking Committee.

    *

    For some insight on why the meltdown occurred,
    economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/bill-clinton-on-his-economic-legacy/

    For the most extensive report on Bush and his Administration’s role in this
    nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?_r=1
    (one of the best summaries to date)

    *

    And you still haven’t posted all those “Liberals” who were all complaining the Stimulus Package was too little. Instead you changed course when you realized you had lost, again. Please try to answer my concerns from #36.

  4. Sea Lawyer says:

    #70, Fusion, you are amazing. Poo-pooing something by Karl Rove and then posting an interview with Bill Clinton; although, I do enjoy all his counterfactual speculating. At least your second linked article was actually informative, in a non-CYA kind of way.

  5. Rick's Cafe says:

    …OH WAIT !!! It was that dastardly Barney Frank who finally passed a new oversight bill for the FMs in 2007, after the Democrats took control of Congress and Frank took over the Chairmanship of the Banking Committee…

    Yeah, that same dastardly person who said he had just reviewed the FM’s and found them to be a sound investment….just a few months before the collapse. The same person who re-wrote regulations (in that bill that’s being touted as a savior) forcing the FM’s to loan money to people who had slim to no chance of being qualified. Yeah, that’s the same crook who got all sorts of extra contributions cause of his hard work.
    ********************
    All things aside, Obama maybe a decent person – but he has surrounded himself with so many crooks, liars and thieves that we’ll never get a chance to see what he is really like. Though crooked Chicago politics are as good of an indication as any.

  6. yoshimura says:

    Mr. Fusion said,

    “yoshi,

    Krugman misread the economy as well.

    Another incredibly stupid comment. If you can’t link or cite where you got your quotes then they are just more bullshit.”

    I love you too. Sorry for not linking, but that’s pretty harsh reply, you could’ve used Google if you had some patience. I’ll add sources next time.

    I copied and pasted sources to a drop just for you:
    http://drop.io/krugmanquotes

  7. yoshimura says:

    Mr. Fusion said,
    “yoshi,

    Krugman misread the economy as well.

    Another incredibly stupid comment. If you can’t link or cite where you got your quotes then they are just more bullshit.”

    I love you too. Sorry for not linking, but that’s pretty harsh reply, you could’ve used Google if you had some patience. I’ll add sources next time.

    I copied and pasted sources to a drop just for you:
    http://drop.io/krugmanquotes

  8. Ralph, the Bus Driver, says:

    #75, YOSHI,

    Sorry to disagree, but it isn’t a harsh reply. You stated that “Krugman misread the economy as well.” and post a bunch of quotes. Your quotes come out of nowhere and seem entirely phoney.

    In fact they are useless. You use some “drop” site for a reference. Only very few of those quotes are traceable. Then, it appears most of those quotes are taken out of context (the few I looked at) and old. If something refers to another situatuation, it is very wrong to use it in the current discussion.

    Yes I know posting several links on this blog always gets caught in the spam filter, but as I recently dicovered, removing the “http://www.” will allow the address through. The reader will need to copy and paste but I think most honest readers appreciate the time and effort required.

    By not posting your sources (links) you leave yourself open to be accused of invention. Trying to apply a Krugman quote from 2002 to the surrent situation is just such an invention. It is intellectually dishonest.

    Expecting someone else to spend the time researching your claims is just plain wrong. You made the claim, not I. You back them up.

  9. Rick's Cafe says:

    LOL
    piss and moan cause too lazy to have already read or look up general knowledge then piss and moan cause the links provided don’t match the format you’re use to.

    next complaint will be cause the link comes from a biased source(can only use ‘approved sources’)…ya know, like FOX, MSNBC, WaPo or AP :))
    sounds a bit like my old english teacher, nothing I did was ever good enough for her either:)

  10. Ralph, the Bus Driver, says:

    #77, Rick,

    And judging from your comment, your teacher was correct. You don’t seem to be able to decipher between bullshit and the truth.

    Opinions are NOT facts. Quotes out of context are disingenuous. Falsely attributing something to someone is just plain wrong.

  11. Rick's Cafe says:

    #78
    “..Opinions are NOT facts…”
    Unless it’s a consensus of scientists….then it becomes a law:)

    But to your point, those were actual quotes referenced and they were not taken out of context because great effort was made to include more than 1/2 a sentence. The specific of your post that irritated me was:
    “…You use some “drop” site for a reference. Only very few of those quotes are traceable…”

    There were 14 references listed for nine quotes…I’d call that “traceable”.

    You are right about one thing, there is
    something terrible wrong with someone falsely attributing something [comment/statement/action/lack of traceable quotes] to someone…specially when facts have been previously made clear – but are ignored in order to forward personal agendas.

    Sadly, this applies to the global warming, the economy & pretty much everything that’s currently being proposed in Washington – and applies to both parties and many posters on this site.

    It’s also part of what makes finding the proper villain, so hard. Times were so much easier back in the days when ‘badguys’ were a different race or spoke a different language, wore a black hat….something easy for all to identify.


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