Obama Calls GOP ‘Pledge’ A Joke

Toward the end of a live interview this morning with ‘Today Show’ host Matt Lauer, President Barack Obama responded to a new plan put out last week by House Republicans.

“What I’m seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible,” Obama said. “And we saw in their ‘Pledge to America’ a similar set of irresponsible policies.”

The ‘Pledge,’ an outline of policies Republicans would attempt to implement should their party win back Congress this fall, was met with a fair amount of skepticism last week, even by some Republicans, who called the document heavy on rhetoric but light on details.

Republicans, said Obama, “say they want to balance the budget…they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts, and then they say we’re going to somehow magically balance the budget. That’s not a serious approach.”