Republicans Launch Bicameral Effort to Blast Obama Budget Proposal

Republicans Launch Bicameral Effort to Blast Obama Budget Proposal

CQ Today, By Edward Epstein

MARCH 12, 2009

Republican leaders in the House and Senate launched an unusual joint effort Wednesday to create a drumbeat of criticism about President Obama's proposed budget that they hope will mobilize opposition over the next few weeks.

"Republicans in the House and Senate, with some degree of cooperation and collaboration, are going to challenge the assumptions and content in President Obama's budget and offer alternatives," House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana told reporters. Seated next to him was his Senate counterpart, Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

Republican aides compared the effort to last August's nonstop House GOP assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for not allowing a vote on their energy legislation. Although that attempt - which featured members coming to the floor throughout the recess to address an empty chamber and tourists in the gallery - didn't help the party stave off losses in November's election, it did mobilize the GOP faithful.

The Pence-Alexander event marked the kickoff of a monthlong campaign that will continue through Obama's release of his full budget plan early in April. It continued in the late afternoon when House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, held another press conference to hammer at Obama's budget outline.

Continuing Critique

The GOP leaders indicated they plan to keep up a daily critique of the administration's budget proposal. Boehner said the $3.7 trillion budget, coming on top of a $785 billion stimulus package, a $410 billion omnibus spending package and trillions of dollars in aid to the financial system from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, threatens to overwhelm the country. "There is a point at which we will bury the country under a mountain of debt," Boehner said.

"We thought, given the magnitude of the issues in the budget, that this is the right battle to lock arms in, as much as we can, to explain the president's budget and bring forward Republican prescriptions for economic growth," Pence added.

Pence said House Republicans, led by ranking Budget Committee member Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, plan to offer a complete alternative budget proposal. Alexander said the Senate GOP will "offer specific alternatives to individual items" in Obama's plan.

Pence said the GOP message would be that the Democratic budget plan "spends too much, taxes too much, borrows too much. Republicans have a better plan."

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said Republicans were continuing with negative messaging. "Press conferences don't solve the American people's problems. Actions and results do," he said. "We hope Republicans will work with us to increase investments in health care and education so we can create jobs. Republicans are being the party of no."

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