Time’s Klein Hails Obama As ‘Mr. Prudent’ on Federal Budget, Blasts Ryan Budget as ‘Extremely Radical’
President Obama is “Mr. Prudent,” a grown-up heralding “deficit sanity” in a Washington gone mad with “delusional” Republican plans for draconian budget cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy. That's the predictable leftist talking point-laden take that Time magazine's Joe Klein had after listening to President Obama's hectoring lecture yesterday at George Washington University (emphasis mine): “This is one of the most important debates that we can have,” President Obama said at the close of his much anticipated speech about the federal-budget deficit. He is absolutely right, although his speech didn't add much to the conversation in terms of specifics. Unlike Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's recent budget plan, Barack Obama's proposed no radical restructurings or curtailments of brontosaurus-size programs like Medicare or Medicaid. Unlike some of the other plans floating about, and there are scads of them, his didn't propose gimmicky new revenue-raising schemes like a national sales tax. Indeed, Obama didn't add much to the measures he had previously proposed — except for an increased desire to cut defense spending and a requirement that Congress enter into annual sudden-death negotiations if the deficit exceeds 2.8% of gross domestic product. But the President did add a crucial element to the debate: a sense of proportion and sanity.
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on April 14, 2011. Filed under