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Top Dem: O's Budget Needs a 'Scrub'
President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget came under criticism from an unexpected source yesterday - Sen. Kent Conrad, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who vowed to give the spending plan a "thorough scrubbing." The blast from within the ranks of Obama's own party comes as Congress is girding for battle over the budget document - which pays for health reform, clean energy and other programs with $1 trillion in tax hikes over the next decade. "I am concerned about the long-term buildup of debt," the North Dakota senator told CNBC. "I'm especially concerned about the second five years of this budget. I don't think it goes far enough in a plan to reduce our long-term debt. So I think that requires additional work." Conrad - who was one of the first senators to endorse Obama for president - took aim at a controversial plan to raise more than $300 billion in revenue by lowering the tax deductions wealthy filers can claim. "I can assure you that is going to have a lot of attention as we seek to alter the president's budget so that it can get passed, so that it can get implemented and so that it really works for this economy," Conrad said. "I would put that high on the list of things that will be given a thorough scrubbing and may well not survive." Another Democratic senator also expressed concern about Obama's budget. "While President Obama inherited much of the deficit he's battling, his budget has eye-popping numbers, and its size and scope concern me," said Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who helped broker a deal on the stimulus package. The budget calls for publicly held debt of 65 percent of gross domestic product in 2010 - a jump of 24 percentage points. By 2019, debt would be 67 percent of GDP, totaling $15 trillion. "The problem is that this country's become addicted to debt," said David Walker, CEO of the Peterson Foundation, a fiscal watchdog. Posted by: Fred 2009-02-28 |
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