Spoken Aloud in D.C.: Impeachment!

March 2, 2010 (LPAC)—At the Brookings Institution on Monday, Maryland's Rep. Steny Hoyer, Majority Leader of the House, gave a speech on "Building Momentum for Fiscal Responsibility." It contained the usual fear-mongering about the need to reduce the deficit because of the consequences to be faced by our grandchildren. He spoke on the need to face reality and "confront tough choices. When deficit solutions meet resistance, which they will, and when they are painful, which they will be, it's our job to explain why they are correct—and essential." Hoyer defended Obama and praised his leadership on this issue, and went on to discuss all the great [austerity] work Obama is doing: reining in health-care costs, passing the PAYGO legislation, and creating the fiscal commission.

As promised, Hoyer took questions. LaRouche Youth Movement organizer Shannon Chew got in the first question of three:

"Hi, my name is Shannon. I work for LaRouchePAC. And I just wanted to briefly put my question in context of — [slight disturbance at mention of LaRouche]

Hoyer: "I've got unerring choices." [as in, why did I call on a LaRouchie?!]

Shannon: "—the crisis faced by people outside the Beltway. Unemployment benefits are being cut. State budgets are in major crisis. Medicare is being cut. And people continue to lose their homes and their jobs. And Obama's answer in some of the legislation you just discussed is not to build a modern Civilian Conservation Corps, it's not to return to a National Bank and its policies, but it's to make more cuts, in what you call balancing the budget or reducing the deficit.

"My question is: How much longer do you think the population will tolerate these policies from Obama, and why shouldn't they warrant his immediate impeachment?" [Gasps, laughter]

Hoyer answered by giving a speech in defense of Obama, his stimulus and his bailing out of Wall Street—including his support of TARP. Hoyer acknowledged that things were still bad, but he tried to praise Obama for the progress he's made—cutting job losses to 35,000 average in the last three months, boosting GDP, helping the stock market and so forth.

But still, Hoyer felt the need to address the impeachment issue:

"So my view in response, a relatively long response is, that we have taken very substantial efforts to stabilize and to start growing the economy, and statistically we've done that.... [acknowledges the remaining problems of unemployment, etc.] but, uh, certainly I don't think it is, uh, it is not serious to say that anybody should consider impeaching this President who has shown a great deal of courage and effectiveness in confronting a dire situation, and he's taken a lot of heat for that. But I think he will continue to keep focused on growing the economy and growing jobs. We've seen the success. We've seen progress..."