Pence to Spitzer: Yes, we're going to do entitlement reform

Is Eliot Spitzer clueless or dishonest? It has to be one or the other in this clip from earlier today on CNN. I’m leaning towards dishonest. He jumps all over Rep. Mike Pence for not including Social Security reform and balancing the budget in the FY2011 budget proposal, which Democrats didn’t bother to pass when they had the responsibility to do so. Spitzer either doesn’t know or conveniently doesn’t mention that entitlement reforms require statutory changes which by long-standing rules in Congress cannot be added to budgetary bills. Since Harry Reid notoriously announced last week that the Senate wouldn’t address Social Security reform for the next twenty years, I’m going to chalk this up to Spitzer spin and a failed attempt at gotcha interviewing:

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Pence exposes Spitzer’s dishonesty in this exchange:

SPITZER: Look, Congressman, I’ve been waiting for months to get the specifics on that. A down payment in the world of business where I come from usually requires about 10 percent.

PENCE: Right.

SPITZER: You’re not even making a down payment.

PENCE: Right.

SPITZER: And frankly, I don’t want to parse the words —

PENCE: And it’s too much for Harry Reid.

SPITZER: Look, let’s pivot for just a little bit.

That sounds like a Spitz-take to me.  Let’s pivot is Spitzerese for “I don’t want to acknowledge that Democrats are the problem here.”

Entitlement reform, if done properly, will take a few months to accomplish.  During the election, Republicans assumed that Democrats would do their job and pass an FY2011 budget before it was due on October 1st of last year.  They’ve had to spend the first three months cleaning up Nancy Pelosi’s mess.

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