Biden: “We misread how bad the economy was … everyone else misread the economy”. Nobody “talking” unemployment could reach 10.5 percent. Really, Joe? Really? (Video Update)

Today we have VPOTUS Joe Biden telling George Stephanopoulos in an interview filmed this week in Iraq, which aired this morning on ABC’s “This Week”, that, although “the Obama administration ‘misread how bad the economy was’”, it “stands by its stimulus package and believes the plan will create more jobs as the pace of its spending picks up.” Biden also admitted the “nation’s 9.5 percent unemployment rate is ‘much too high’.”

Video (at top) of this particular segment of the interview. Here’s the full exchange from the ABC transcript. All emphasis added.

STEPHANOPOULOS: While we’ve been here, some pretty grim job numbers back at home — 9.5 percent unemployment in June, the worst numbers in 26 years.

How do you explain that? Because when the president and you all were selling the stimulus package, you predicted at the beginning that, to get this package in place, unemployment will peak at about 8 percent. So, either you misread the economy, or the stimulus package is too slow and to small.

BIDEN: The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there.

Everyone thought at that stage — everyone — the bulk of…

STEPHANOPOULOS: CBO would say a little bit higher.

BIDEN: A little bit, but they’re all in the same range. No one was talking about that we would be moving towards — we’re worried about 10.5 percent, it will be 9.5 percent at this point.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But we’re looking at 10 now, aren’t we?

BIDEN: No. Well, look, we’re much too high. We’re at 9 — what, 9.5 right now?

STEPHANOPOULOS: 9.5.

BIDEN: And so the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited. 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.

We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package. 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.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No, but a lot of people were saying that you needed to do something bigger and bolder then, including the economist Paul Krugman. He’s saying — right now he’s saying the same thing again — don’t wait. You need a second stimulus, you need it now.

BIDEN: Look, what we have to do now is we have to properly, adequately, transparently and effectively spend out the $787 billion.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s your job. You’re in charge of that now.

BIDEN: That is my job, and I think we’re doing it well. If you noticed, George, I mean, there were other predictions. This was going to be wasteful and all these terrible projects were going to be out there, and we’re wasting money. Well, that dog hasn’t barked yet.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Senator Coburn has identified some.

BIDEN: Yes — no, he hasn’t, but he did, he identified one hundred ? forty-eight of which we had already killed. And so — and the rest I dispute. So the bottom line though is, I think anybody would say this has been pretty well managed so far.

The question is, how do you now — do we — what we have to do, George, is we have to, as this rolls out, put more pace on the ball. The second hundred days you’re going to see a lot more jobs created.

And the reason you are is now all of these contracts for the over several thousand highway projects that have approved.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’re also seeing states across the country cutting back on their programs. Many of the people on unemployment?

BIDEN: Sure.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ? today are going to run out of unemployment in September. That means for a lot of those people, if there is not a second stimulus, they’re going to be out in the cold.

BIDEN: Well, look, we have increased the amount of money unemployed — those on unemployment rolls have gotten, 12 million are getting more money because of the stimulus package.

We’ve increased the number of people eligible by 2 million people. We’ve given a tax cut to 95 percent of the people who get a pay stub. They have somewhere — $60 bucks a month out there that’s going into the economy.

There is a lot going on, George. And I think it’s premature to make the judgment?

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no second stimulus?

BIDEN: No, I didn’t say that. I think it’s premature to make that judgment. This was set up to spend out over 18 months. There are going to be major programs that are going to take effect in September, $7.5 billion for broadband, new money for high-speed rail, the implementation of the grid — the new electric grid.

And so this is just starting, the pace of the ball is now going to increase.

Remarkably, Stephanopoulos pointed out that Biden is in charge of the stimulus, to which Biden agreed — making him the bag holder when it all goes swirling down the drain. Way to go, Joe.

Plus, again, fault-free POTUS just happens to be the guy hanging around in the ‘hood — waiting to pass the buck to dear old Joe.

Flashback 1: Flight of Fancy Alert — POTUS July 2 “deeply concerned” about job loss:

Flashback 2: VPOTUS Joe Biden on Meet The Press with David Gregory two weeks ago talking about the economy:

Flashback 3: Taking another step backward to March 12, we have POTUS telling the Business Roundtable:

[The] national crisis is ‘not as bad as we think’ and his plans will speed recovery.

Challenged to provide encouragement as the nation’s “confidence builder in chief,” Obama said Americans shouldn’t be whipsawed by bursts of either bad or good news and he was ‘highly optimistic’ about the long term. [...]

“A smidgen of good news and suddenly everything is doing great. A little bit of bad news and ooohh , we’re down on the dumps,” Obama said. “And I am obviously an object of this constantly varying assessment. I am the object in chief of this varying assessment.”

“I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say,” Obama added. “Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They’re not as bad as we think they are now.”

“And my long-term projections are highly optimistic, if we take care of some of these long-term structural problems.”