Obama camp calls Romney and Santorum budget busters
AP Photo/Al Goldis
Updated at 2:50 p.m. ET
President Obama's re-election campaign is treating Rick Santorum like a serious contender, looking past his hardline social conservatism to critique his economic policies.
The Obama campaign on Tuesday released a memo that casts both Santorum and Mitt Romney as budget busters, in spite of their claims they would reduce national deficits.
"As Sen. Santorum has risen in the polls, the scrutiny of his policies will follow," Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, told reporters Tuesday. "And the fact is, [Romney and Santorum] have both introduced proposals that would lead to massive increases in the deficit. And so we thought it was appropriate" to look at what those proposals would do.
The memo claims that by rejecting any tax increases or new sources of revenue while calling for inordinate tax cuts, Santorum and Romney have put together unrealistic budgets that would come at a high cost to many Americans. The campaign contrasted their plans with Mr. Obama's proposed 2013 budget, which relies both on new taxes for the wealthiest Americans and budget cuts.
Romney's plan, the Obama campaign contends, would increase the deficit by at least $175 billion in the year 2016 alone, even if he enacted his deficit reduction proposals. The deficit increase would come from increased defense spending and proposed tax cuts for corporations and investors.
Santorum's plan aims to cut $5 trillion from from the federal budget over five years with few specific proposals for deficit reduction, the Obama campaign argues -- leading to even higher deficits than the Romney plan.
Santorum has "simply called for across the board spending cuts of various sorts," Harvard economist Jeffery Liebman told reporters. "But simple arithmetic shows how unrealistic his plan would be... Santorum would have to eliminate all defense spending and all domestic discretionary spending simply to match the president's level of deficit spending. Or I guess he could do it by cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits significantly for existing retirees. So the Santorum's budget is definitely operating in fantasy land."
As Santorum has gained momentum, Romney has also taken aim at his GOP rival's economic policies. On the campaign trail in recent days, he's blasted Santorum for supporting congressional funding of pet projects and for voting to raise the nation's legal borrowing limit.
The Romney campaign responded to the Obama team's memo by charging that the president is in no position to criticize Romney's budget proposals.
"After all, this is the president who just proposed the largest tax increase in American history and has given us four straight trillion-dollar budget deficits," Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul said. "Middle-income Americans have been crushed by the Obama economy and millions of American workers have just given up looking for work. This was the president who told us that if he didn't fix the economy in three years, he'd be looking at a one term proposition. It's time to collect."
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LOL!
Hey fox/rush parrot -- here comes the nurse with your Thorazine...
Yes, the bush/cheney regime gave us a $1.2 Trillion budget deficit when they left in disgrace on Jan. 20th, 2009, and that was even with the bush WARS off-budget like in every year of their mismanagement, and their policies and past legislation has only fueled the majority of the current budget deficits!
We MUST get rid of the bush tax cuts that are driving these budget deficits, since we will NEVER be able to balance our federal budget with just cuts in spending!
NEVER!!!!
Both sides of the equation need to be addressed, especially when federal revenue has fallen to a mere 14% of GDP, when the post-WWII average is 18.5% of GDP.
Obama is running around this country telling us how he is working to get jobs. (Nov. just around the corner)Obama cancels Canadian pipline--20,000 jobs gone!! Obama will not allow us to drill for oil--thousands of jobs gone!!, yet goes to Brazil to help them drill for oil!!! Wants to shut down our coal mines!! Are we all nuts???Re-elect Obama???? You're kiddding, right??? How many other Presidents, upon being elected, brought into the White House, a certified Communist advisor? On and on!!
1) Obama didn't cancel the pipeline - he denied the initial request and asked them to resubmit one that addresses the environmental conerns, WHICH Transcanada WAS ALREADY IN PROCESS ON. Only the Republican demand for an immediate decision caused the delay.
2) The pipeline would have created 5,000 jobs (not 20,000) 2,200 of which were in CANADA.
3) Obama has open more territory for drilling, and approved more drilling permits, in 3 years than Bush did in 8.
4) No one has suggested shutting down all our coal mines.
So if you look at the actual facts, instead of the propsaganda, you will see Obama has been doing an OK job. Not great, but OK - and better than anty of the Republican options.
"The U.S. produced more oil in 2010 than it has since 2003, and all forms of energy production have increased."
"Besides the upward trend for oil, more gas has been produced in each of Obama's three years in the White House than any other year since 1936, thanks in large part to a boom in the production of natural gas from shale and other hard-to-reach sources."
"Coal mining is also on the rebound, after declining in 2008 and 2009 due in large part to the weak economy and milder weather reducing electricity demand."
Also as was mentioned by the other person, there were not 20,000 jobs with the pipeline. There would have been a few thousand for no more than 2 years to build the pipeline. The bulk of the jobs were up in Canada. Also the oil would have been sold on the world market, just like all the other oil, including the U.S. oil.