Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the President's budget, which he submitted today. In an era of trillion- dollar deficits and historic debt and the greatest level of government spending since World War II, I believe the President's submission today was not a responsible budget. Instead of keeping his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half in his first term, this budget assumes continued deficits this year and next in the trillion-dollar range. Given the promises President Obama made when he came to the White House and how poorly the last budget was received by Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress--in fact, it was voted on here on the floor of the Senate, and it was defeated by a vote of 97 to 0--given those things, I hoped President Obama would step forward and turn the rhetoric into action and put forward a responsible budget to deal with the fiscal problems our government faces--no more punting, no more gimmicks, a real budget that honestly faces the fiscal crisis we have and helps put us back on track. Instead, we see a document today that is really more tailored toward campaign talking points than really addressing the long-term solvency of the Federal Government. The President begins by proposing a new $350 billion in stimulus bill. By the way, that is $350 billion with no offsets--in other words, no spending reductions to pay for it. The President's budget then claims $5.3 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.…
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