Obama Slams Bush's Fiscal Practices

President Obama opened his "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House on Monday by condemning "the casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks" that he said the Bushies used to conceal the mushrooming deficit. During his speech, Obama also said he'd slice the $1.3 trillion federal shortfall, which he believes he inherited from Bush, in two during his first term even though about a quarter of the deficit comes from Obama's stimulus package. In order to make the budget more transparent, Obama also said he'd differ from his predecessor by putting the full cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on the budget and allocate natural disaster money. In the summit’s final session Obama opened the floor to questions, calling on former rival John McCain first and praising him for being “sincere” and “extraordinarily consistent.”