WASHINGTON: President Obama's proposed $3.8 trillion budget ran into immediate trouble in Congress on Monday among lawmakers who said it tries to do too much while cutting the deficit too little.The quick response came as Obama sought to juggle his twin goals of creating jobs, which entails tax cuts and new spending, and cutting the deficit, which involves the opposite.
Republicans who spent the past year criticizing Obama's $862 billion economic stimulus package, said the president was being spendthrift by raising the overall budget 3%. They lambasted his plan to let President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire next year for families making more than $250,000.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., top Republican on the House Budget Committee, called the budget "a very aggressive agenda of more government spending, more taxes, more deficits and more debt — with just a few cosmetic budget maneuvers to give the illusion of restraint."
Liberal budget experts agreed that the plan didn't go far enough to reduce the deficit, despite $1.6 trillion in savings over 10 years. The $1.56 trillion deficit would be cut in half by 2014 but grow back to $1 trillion by 2020. The cumulative deficit over 10 years: $8.5 trillion.
"It falls well short of what will be needed to get deficits under control," said Robert Greenstein of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "The budget probably goes as far in that area as today's toxic political environment will allow."
That's the problem facing Obama and Congress as the budget debate begins along with congressional election campaigns. For years, lawmakers have rejected presidents' budget proposals and reshaped them because they have the final power to approve spending.
