Here's a roundup of some of the reaction to and coverage of President Obama's FY2012 budget proposal, starting with a summary of the basic facts from Ezra Klein:
The budget -- which proposes to spend $3.73-trillion in 2012 -- includes $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. Two-thirds of that comes from spending cuts, with the largest chunk the administration's proposed five-year freeze of non-security discretionary spending. The final third comes in tax increases. If all goes well, that'll take the deficit down from the 10.9 percent of GDP we're projecting for 2011 to 3% of GDP in 2017 -- a much more manageable level. Entitlements, tax expenditures, and other traditionally toxic parts of the federal budget are not being addressed.
Digby:
The government is not like a family figuring out how to cut back on expenses. (If it is Dad is a real deadbeat because he decided to give up half his income last December to some rich frat boys.) And this isn't really about programs President Obama "cares about" or about how "tough" it is for him. President Obama will not have to personally worry about these things and neither will his children, so the idea that he "cares" is just a tiny bit abstract in this context. This is about actual human beings and their ability to survive now and build a decent future.
The main problem with all this, of course, is that he willingly signed a tax cut extension for the wealthiest people on the planet just two months ago even as they are making money hand over fist as it is, so any talk about "shared sacrifice" rings just a little bit hollow now. If he wants to be honest about this and admit that he's catering to spoiled plutocrats and Wall Street Demi-Gods because he truly believes that he needs to sacrifice ordinary Americans on the alter of their egos, that's one thing. But blowing smoke about how this hurts him just as much as the college kid who has to drop out in a terrible labor market --- but he's willing to make the sacrifice and so should we --- well, it is too cynically cheap for words.
Paul Krugman:
It’s much less awful than the Republican proposal, but it moves in the same direction: listening to the administration, you’d think that discretionary spending, not health care, is at the heart of our long-run deficit problems — and you’d also think that the job of rescuing the economy was done, with unemployment still at 9 percent.
It could be worse — the GOP proposal is — but it’s hardly something to cheer about.
Bush tax cuts back on radar:
President Barack Obama's budget proposal resurrects a series of tax increases that were largely ignored by Congress when Democrats controlled both chambers. Republicans, who now control the House, are signaling they will be even less receptive.
The plan cuts defense:
President Obama's FY 2012 budget provides $553 billion for the Defense Department's baseline budget. Military spending would be cut by 5 percent compared to the FY 2011 request -- the first time in several years that defense spending would actually drop. Pentagon spending would drop by $78 billion over the next five years, in line with cuts that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recommended, and increase with inflation thereafter.
Grover Norquist:
The President Stands By His Overspending: Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter on a normal (bad) day, not Bill Clinton on a good day.
The “budget” unveiled by Barack Obama doesn’t pass the laugh test. It is a pretend feint to moderation. Republicans — who do not have the entire executive branch at their disposal — have already put forward $100 billion in reductions in spending this year. Obama is countering with $40 billion each year for ten years. The train has left the station and he is negotiating.
Ruy Texeira:
Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Balks at Spending Cuts: Conservatives are fighting amongst themselves about how deep spending cuts should be this year. But they seem blithely unaware that there is little public support for spending cuts, much less deep cuts.
Reaction from GOP budget committee heads:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan: Failing to heed the warnings of economists and the demands of the American people, the President’s budget accelerates our country down the path to bankruptcy.
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions: President Obama has failed to lead in the face of this growing crisis. Today he submitted a budget to Congress that accelerates our dangerous trajectory.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor:
President Obama's budget doubles down on the bad habits of the past four years by calling for more taxes, spending and borrowing of money that we simply do not have.
Democratic Talking Points:
The President’s budget is designed to strengthen our nation, invest in the future, help create jobs and grow our economy, while reducing the deficit by $1.1 trillion. We agree with the President that we must out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.
Republicans will bring legislation to the floor this week that cuts jobs, threatens American innovation, hampers our global competitiveness, and diminishes investments in rebuilding America.
Steve Benen:
Obama's preferred approach is about making him appear reasonable against GOP extremism. As the fight progresses, the president will tell the public, "I presented a budget plan with deep cuts, even to programs I care about, which will lower the deficit considerably. Instead of working on a sensible compromise, Republicans are going too far and now want to shut down the government." The point is to push the GOP into fighting the White House to do some very unpopular things -- things the president and his team suspect Republicans will drop when push comes to shove, for fear of a public backlash.
Greg Sargent:
President Obama, unveiling his budget just now, said:
As a start, I called for a freeze on annual domestic spending over the next five years. This freeze would cut the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, bringing this kind of spending -- domestic, discretionary spending -- to its lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
Let me repeat that. Because of this budget, this share of spending will be at its lowest level since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
I think there's more to this rhetorical move than meets the eye. It's about painting today's GOP as extreme, by reminding people that there was a time when Republicans had a far more moderate view of the proper role and scale of government than today's crop of GOPers do. After all, under Eisenhower, the federal government launched construction of what Michael Tomasky recently described as the "largest public works project in the country's history," i.e., the interstate highway system.
What's more, Eisenhower famously said it was folly for anyone to deny that the American public envisions a central and robust role in defending ordinary Americans from the vagaries of the economy, and strongly defended Social Security, unemployment and labor laws:
Ezra Klein:
2012 Budget: Like the Fiscal Commission never happened: What was notable about the Fiscal Commission's final report was the way it opened up the playing field on the budget. It went after tax revenues, tax expenditures, the military, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, domestic spending, government reform and more. ... The president's 2012 budget dodges on almost all of that. ... The big attack is on the 12 percent of the budget known as non-defense discretionary spending, which is what politicians in Washington always like to focus on, and what the commission's report was trying to move the discussion past.
Josh Marshall:
Here's the key thing to keep in mind in this current round of budget politicking. President Obama has proposed some pretty substantial cuts to government spending. Sen. Sessions and other Republicans are saying it's not nearly enough. And ABC reports not only Republicans but some Democrats are saying it too.
But while Washington and much of the national political press gets into a frenzy let's not forget that all the available public opinion data suggests the public either opposes this or considers it a low priority relative to job creation and other priorities.
Family planning spared:
One notable absence from President Obama's FY 2012 budget is any mention of the Title X program.
Republicans have made getting rid of this family planning funding a top priority. The House Appropriations Committee last week announced that it would be cutting $327 million from the program, which would effectively wipe it out. In FY 2011, Title X received $317 million.
Future lobbyists want more pain:
Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad today said the nation needs “a much more robust package of deficit and debt reduction over the medium and long term.”
“It is not enough to focus primarily on cutting the non-security discretionary part of the budget, which accounts for just 12 percent of spending this year,” he warned. “Instead, we need a comprehensive long-term debt reduction plan, in the size and scope of what was proposed by the President’s Fiscal Commission.
David Leonhardt:
I just spoke to an administration official who explained why President Obama’s budget would eliminate Pell grants for summer classes. The short answer is that administration officials do not think that it’s an efficient use of money.
The cost of including summer classes in the Pell program was not supposed to be very large — roughly 1 percent of Pell’s annual $30 billion cost in future years. Instead, many more students than expected have signed up for the program and are receiving federal aid for summer classes. In 2013, summer grants are projected to cost $5 billion of the program’s total $36 billion budget — or a whopping 14 percent.