Democrats skeptical of deficit in 2011 budget

Published 10:38 pm Tuesday, February 2, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget got a cool — at times frosty — reception Tuesday from the lawmakers he needs most, as congressional Democrats offered a host of reasons they are skeptical of the White House plan.

The biggest one: Obama’s proposal envisions adding $8.5 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

“The president’s 10-year-outlook is not a path we can take,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Obama proposed on Monday a $3.83 trillion blueprint for fiscal 2011, a budget that anticipates a record deficit of $1.56 trillion this year and $1.27 trillion next year. On Tuesday, his top lieutenants testified before congressional committees.

Most of the Democrats agreed that more short-term deficit spending is needed to keep the economy from sinking, but a chorus of lawmakers also wanted tougher action to curb future budget deficits.

“I’d like to see a lot more deficit reduction,” House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., told White House budget director Peter Orszag.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., was concerned that interest rates may go up more than the administration forecasts. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., wanted more attention paid to how curbing health care costs could cut budget deficits.

Conrad, who will take the lead in navigating the budget through the Senate, was most vocal. While he backed short-term proposals to create jobs and increase the deficit, “I have strong disagreements with the long-term” plan, he said.

Orszag said that Obama had a long-term plan to reduce the deficits, notably an as-yet unappointed bipartisan commission to recommend remedies and a renewed push for changes in the nation’s health care system.

Orszag was hardly resolute, though, that a commission is a sure bet to bring down deficits, noting that its recommendations would be “subject to considerable uncertainty and will depend on the evolution of the economy.”

Any commission recommendations also would have to be approved by Congress, where expected recommendations to cut the future costs of popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare and to raise taxes would face stiff resistance.

There’s also no assurance that Congress will agree to a commission that has clout. The Senate failed last week to enact a measure to create such a panel.

Complicating the debt-reduction picture is the desire by members of both parties to preserve what they see as important local programs, as well as to give themselves something to boast about in this election year.

“There really isn’t anything in this budget which I can take home or talk about in favorable terms with respect to coal when I want to,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. “The president talked in his State of the Union about being for research and development … but the budget doesn’t reflect it.”