President Obama: Obsessions Of A Shopaholic!
GOP:
BAM COOKS
THE BUDGET BOOKS
by Geoff Earle
March 4th, 2009
The New York Post
Republicans slammed President Obama
for “cooking the books” in his new
budget proposal,
as the administration said this year’s
$1.75 trillion deficit was caused a by
a crisis unlike any in generations.
GOP lawmakers grilled Peter Orszag,
Obama’s budget chief, in his first
testimony on Capitol Hill to defend
the tax and spending plan he
unveiled last week.
“The numbers in this budget
are staggeringly high,”
fumed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
“If these scenarios in this baseline
don’t play themselves out,
then they’ll be even higher.”
.
Orszag replied:
“The new administration has
inherited an economic crisis
unlike any we have seen in
our lifetimes.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner,
who would oversee more than
$1 trillion in higher taxes over
the next decade,
got similar treatment.
“It looks like somebody’s
cooking the books,”
grumbled Rep. Kevin Brady
(R-Texas) at a House Ways
and Means Committee hearing.
“The president’s budget increases
taxes on every American,
and does so during a recession,”
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.)
told Geithner.
.
Geithner countered that tax
increases don’t kick in until 2011,
when the administration is
projecting that a recovery
would be under way.
Although Ryan,
the top Republican on the
House Budget Committee,
praised some aspects of the budget,
he also ripped into accounting
methods –
like budgeting for high initial
war costs that demonstrate
a savings later.
“So you assume in your budget
that we’re going to have a surge
in 10 years [in Iraq],
even though a surge,
by definition, is up,
then back down,”
Ryan said, pressing Orszag.
“To go back,
$1.6 trillion of these savings is
because you are saying we are
not going to have a surge for
10 years,
we are going to ramp it down,”
he continued.
.
Orszag replied:
“About a trillion-and-a-half dollars
is because the war ends more
quickly under this budget then
we think the alternative
would have been.”
Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas)
accused Obama of putting up
a “trifecta of trillions” –
with the stimulus package,
appropriations spending
and budget deficits.
He said the deficit –
which is projected to fall from
$1.75 trillion to $533 billion
over a decade –
showed
“red ink as far
as the eye can see.”
.
.
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