Updated at 9:25 a.m. on February 14.
With President Obama’s proposed budget due out this morning, Senate Republicans are already signaling their disappointment with leaked portions of the plan.
Obama’s 2012 budget calls for $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years, with roughly two-thirds drawn from spending cuts and another third from revenue increases, but members of the GOP say that’s not nearly enough.
“A $1 trillion reduction is insignificant and does not get us on the right course and historically we know the president's numbers are inflated so it will be less reduction,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, the ranking member of the Budget Committee said today on CNN’s American Morning. “We have a 50/50 chance of not having a debt crisis. The international monetary fund said we have to make substantial changes, and this budget, it appears, doesn't come close.”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the former Bush administration budget director and current member of the Budget Committee agrees with Sessions.
"We are looking at a challenge we never faced before," he said on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown. "This is a situation that cries out for leadership and requires leadership on both sides of the aisle. This is the president's opportunity. This is his vision for the next 10 years and frankly is doesn't rise to the challenge."
For Portman, one of the biggest problems is that the proposal does not sufficiently deal with "the elephant in the room." Namely it doesn't do enough to address the costs of entitlement reform for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who took to MSNBC’s Morning Joe and confirmed he would be running for Republican whip in two years, said he was disappointed that the president’s proposed budget deals with a small fraction of federal spending, raises taxes, and “ignores the recommendation of his own fiscal commission.”
“Right now [Obama] seems to be very timid about taking the leadership role that the president typically takes in these battles,” said Cornyn who is also on the Budget Committee. And while he said the deficit needs to be reduced to a greater degree, that does not mean an increase in taxes.
“I don’t think we need to be talking about tax increases until we get serious about spending,” he said.
Still, the senator said bipartisan work was possible.
“Republicans are ready to meet him halfway,” he said.
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