Billgate: President Obama and His Unpaid Bills [Updated]

    During various showdowns with Congress over the past few years (government shutdown, debt ceiling, sequester,) President Obama has declared that we've got to "pay our bills on time." Twice in the past week, President Obama has raised the issue of unpaid bills - but not those of the United States - his own personal bills.

President Obama, executive order signing , October 17, 2014:

I went to a restaurant up in New York when I was there during the General Assembly, and my credit card was rejected... And I was trying to explain to the waitress, no, I really think that I’ve been paying my bills.

 President Obama, Democratic fundraiser, October 20, 2014:

One of the nice things about being home is actually that it's a little bit like a time capsule. Because Michelle and I and the kids, we left so quickly that there’s still junk on my desk, including some unpaid bills (laughter) -- I think eventually they got paid -- but they're sort of stacked up. And messages, newspapers and all kinds of stuff.

    As Daniel Halper noted, the White House did not include the president's remarks about the unpaid bills in the official transcript of the October 20 remarks, but a White House pool reporter caught the omission.
    As they say in Washington, it's the cover up that gets you...


UPDATE:

After initially posting a transcript that completely omitted the "unpaid bills" remark...

...the White House transcript was updated to include "-- (inaudible) --":

Apparently the pool reporters' hearing is superior to that of the White House transcriptionist. Or there was a gap in the tape.

UPDATE 2: Aha! So there WAS an issue with the tape...

“There was a problem with the recording” says Josh Earnest about WH audio recording of the events comments
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) October 21, 2014