Bush’s budget meets Congress
TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: The war of words over the president’s $3 trillion dollar budget will only get louder today. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and White House Budget Director Jim Nussle will be on Capitol Hill for hearings. Given the reactions so far, those two are in for an earful from some members of Congress. Jeremy Hobson reports from Washington.
Jeremy Hobson North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, will be leading the attack on the administration today. He says the budget proposal leaves out the full cost of Iraq, and a permanent patch for the alternative minimum tax.
Sen. Kent Conrad: They just aren’t being square with the American people.
Even Brian Riedl, of the conservative Heritage Foundation, says the president should have made a quote “true” estimate of some of the nation’s looming financial commitments. But he did applaud the president for proposing to reign in entitlement programs.
Brian Riedl: I’m not a 100 percent pleased with the president’s budget, but it’s impossible to please everybody.
Reidl says it will be quite the challenge to deal with an estimated $410 billion deficit in a presidential election year. Senator Conrad’s with him on that one.
Conrad: Somebody asked me if this was dead on arrival, I said it was debt on departure. You know, he’s getting ready to leave town, he’s going to leave a debt bomb behind.
In Washington, I’m Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
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