The President said to Ellen DeGeneres at the taping of “The Ellen DeGeneres show” that “It’s always good to get out of Washington, which can sometimes be a little depressing,” the
DeGeneres asked what part is depressing. “Well, Washington,….kinda not kidding.” The president responded.
“Well, the fact is that, most of the time, if something reaches my desk, it means it’s really hard, which is why they bumped it up to me — ‘cause nobody could figure it out.”
Obama went on to say that in relation to making economic decisions “you’re having to make big bets with incomplete information You’re not sure that everything’s gonna work. And I think that part of what’s happened in this Instagram-Twitter culture is that we expect quick answers without sacrifice, without having to make choices, and politicians play into that.”
“But the truth of the matter is, you know, the world is a big, complicated place,”
“The good news is is that we’re generally going in the right direction, and my hope is that we’ll continue to do so.”
He also stated that he was surprised at the misinformation available online.
“Since I came into office, we reduced the deficit by two-thirds. But if you ask the average person, they’re sure that spending has shot up, and the reason is because there are a bunch of folks who say that we’re wildly overspending, even though we aren’t,”
“And that’s just one small example, but it happens all the time, and that’s something that we have to fix, partly by people paying more attention to what’s going on every single day, and it’s hard.”