PDF: A New Era of Responsibilty
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s ambitious budget blueprint calls for sweeping reforms to health care and energy policy and already has Republicans and Democrats trading barbs over proposed spending growth.
The president’s comments on fiscal discipline during his joint address to Congress last week drew jeers from many Republicans, but Tennessee and Georgia lawmakers said they recognize that both sides of the aisle have a right to criticize.
“Look, the eight years we were in control of the White House, the deficit grew,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. “There’s enough blame to go around. The commitment has to be on both sides to fix the problem.”
Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., said good governments, like good businesses, must borrow money from time to time to create growth, and he defended the recently passed $789 billion economic stimulus package.
But he and other fiscal conservatives will push President Obama to fulfill his promise to go through the budget line by line and eliminate or reform wasteful programs, Rep. Davis said.
“We now owe it to the American people, and to the generations that will have to settle these debts, to tighten our belts and round out the jagged edges of our federal budget,” he said.
President Bush sent the nation’s first-ever $3 trillion budget proposal to Congress in 2008. The $3.1 trillion proposed budget projects sizable increases in national security but forced the rest of government to pinch pennies, according to The Associated Press.
But even with those restraints, the budget deficit projectionswere near-record levels of $410 billion for 2008 and $407 billion in 2009, driven higher in part by efforts to revive the sagging economy with a $145 billion stimulus package.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who recently attended a “fiscal responsibility summit” at the White House, said he prefers a budget plan that focuses on reforming Social Security and establishing a bipartisan commission to review all budget proposals.
The fiscal responsibility summit, however, did generate some good ideas that he hopes the president will embrace, he said.
“Only presidential leadership will help us bring (spending) under control,” Sen. Alexander said. “The problem is, the president’s ambitious spending and tax proposals make it hard to see how he’s going to control the growth in spending.”
Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., said the president lost credibility on fiscal matters by pushing the stimulus package, which Republicans roundly criticized as wasteful.
Mr. Obama’s $3.55 trillion budget blueprint, unveiled Thursday, projects a $1.17 trillion deficit in 2010, though he has promised to halve that to $570 billion by 2014.
“There are great inconsistencies between the things he talks about and the things he does,” Rep. Deal said.
Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said President Obama’s budget proposal would expand government and result in increased taxes in time.
“The president’s proposed budget outline follows on the heels of a massive stimulus spending bill, which puts us on a path to the biggest and most inefficient government that we have ever had,” he said.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the proposal contains a “major sleight of hand” by including a tax on greenhouse gas emissions.
“I guess his claim on Tuesday night that no one earning under $250,000 would pay more in taxes did not apply to this massive climate tax increase all Americans will pay,” Sen. Corker said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
