'A Lot of Pain': OMB Director on the President's Budget

[Freddie Stubbs]

With President Obama's new budget predicting that this year’s deficit will hit a record $1.6 trillion, OMB Director Jack Lew is admitting that we may never see the budget surpluses he left behind when last serving as budget director under Bill Clinton.

“I wish I could stand here and say that we were on the edge of a surplus. When I left my last day in office I went to Congress and testified and projected $5.6 trillion surplus for the next ten years,” Lew told me. “I came back ten years later to look at projections of over $10 trillion in debt over the next ten years. It’s enough to break your heart. It’s going to take us a lot of hard work just to get to the point where we are not adding to the debt.”

But Lew also insists that Obama’s budget will make a real difference – and cause real pain.

“What I would tell you about this budget is it has a lot of pain...it does the job, it cuts the deficit in half by the end of the president’s first term, it has $400 billion of savings which would bring spending on domestic discretionary spending down to the level it was at in the Eisenhower administration and we have made tough choices,” he said on “GMA.”

more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2011/02/a-lot-of-pain-office-of-management-and-budget-director-on-the-presidents-budget.html#tp

[rfranklin]

1. Screw you...the pain should have been applied by cancelling Bush tax cuts...

and then multiplied by higher income taxes on the uberwealthy.

[geek tragedy]

5. "Should" has nothing to do with "can get passed in the House and Senate." nt

[Smashcut]

7. Then what you're saying is Obama isn't equipped to do so.

I tend to think it's because he isn't inclined.

[geek tragedy]

8. Yeah, he could just force the Republicans to raise taxes on the wealthy.

No problem. No such thing as an independent legislative branch.

[vaberella]

10. Not only that the 31 Blue Dog Dems in the House. n/t

[vaberella]

9. Actually you're ignoring that Obama doesn't control the whims of Congress.

He can try to get Congress on his side...but if they don't want to. They won't Like MOST in Congress voted against allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich. That has NOTHING to do with Obama. That lies entirely on Congress. To suggest otherwise, which is what you're doing, is to spin history on it's head.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

11. Nope. This is what happens when Democrats don't turn up and vote.

You get a Congress full of wingnuts, Teabaggers, and Corporate Republicans and some Democrats who go along.

The question is not what Obama is and is not inclined to do. The question is why did the voters allow this to happen? Now we're stuck with what we have.

We can bitch and moan until the cows come home, but this is what you get when people don't vote.

[indepat]

2. The wealthy, with their tax cuts likely assured into infinity, are pained only if they feel the pain

of those who bear the brunt of first, junior's policies, now BHO's. :patriot:

[chowhound]

3. unless you're in the percentage that got a huge tax break

then not so much- but look out poor people that gravy train you been riding is all over.nice. (insert rolling eyes smilie here). im not sure the poor can handle anymore hope and change.

[Lucky 13]

4. "A lot of pain" for the underpriviledged and underserved.

This is a war against the poor and the middle class and it has to stop. How they argue for these cuts after giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations is REPULSIVE and CRIMINAL... AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC.

I want my fucking party back. These DINOs are only slightly better than republicans in the same way that shit is only slightly better than diarrhea.

[lib2DaBone]

6. Pain... except for the Pentagon and the MIlitary who are getting big fat raises...

$436 Million a day for Afghanisan and Iraq... but we can't let grandma be warm in the winter.

And no talk of jobs or rebuilding this crumbling nation while they continue to ship jobs to China.

CONgress.. criminals one and all.....

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. Actually, President Obama's budget cuts defense spending