Legislators react to President Obama's budget plan

GREEN BAY - President Barack Obama released his 2013 budget plan Monday. The administration says it aims to slash the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, but still wants to grow the government’s major health benefit programs.

Here’s how some of the elected officials from Northeast Wisconsin reacted to the budget:

Democratic Senator Herb Kohl said:

“The President’s budget does a good job of balancing the need to grow the economy and get people back to work in the short term while also delivering $4 trillion in long term deficit reduction.  This budget makes wise investments in manufacturing, research and development, and makes college more affordable.  These investments will bolster job creation and will create a more prosperous middle class.”

Representative Reid Ribble said:

“The President’s budget does little, if anything, to seriously address our nation’s fiscal problems. Instead of putting a stop to trillion dollar deficit spending, the President’s budget continues this unhealthy trend and takes our country deeper into debt,” Ribble said.

“The debt crises of the past couple of years, our credit downgrade and the unnervingly high unemployment numbers have all been considered red flags to tackle the debt and out-of-control spending, but unfortunately the President seems to remain unfazed. The promise of cutting the deficit in half by the end of President Obama’s first term is a far cry from where our county is now: $15.3 trillion in debt and climbing,” Ribble continued.

“The President said in his speech today that his budget is a reflection of shared responsibilities, but it seems that the responsibility lies heavily on the backs of small businesses and hardworking taxpayers. Instead of cutting spending and driving down the debt, the budget amps up spending and takes us further down the road toward bankruptcy,” said Ribble.

“This budget reconfirms the President’s disregard of our country’s growing debt crisis which will have a tremendous impact on the fiscal well-being of our children and grandchildren. We cannot spend our way out of this debt problem, and it’s time that we work on real solutions and get real commitment from both chambers and the President to fix Washington’s broken budget process and get out country on a more fiscally sound and sustainable path,” Ribble said.

Senator Ron Johnson said:

“Before I was sworn into the United States Senate, I ran a manufacturing company for 31 years. I learned to look past the symptoms of a problem to identify the root causes. And to me, slow growth and weak job creation are the symptoms of the problem: the root cause is the size, scope, and cost of government. In 2010, government at all levels consumed 39.2 percent of our economy. Nearly 40 percent of our economy was filtered through government at some level. Our national debt – which was just $2.3 trillion at the end of fiscal year 1987 – will reach $25.9 trillion by 2022, under President Obama’s budget.

“As former Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has said, the national debt ‘is by far our biggest national security threat.’  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently said that the dynamic is ‘clearly unsustainable.’ Instead of tackling the problem, the President is proposing the largest tax increase in American history – one which would destroy jobs rather than create them. The President has talked about cutting spending. But he proposes $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years, as compared to the $46 trillion he proposed in his last budget. That’s not a cut. He has no proposal to save Social Security and Medicare. He has ignored the risks of rising interest rates and slowing growth – either of which would add trillions to our debt and deficits. Quite simply, he has failed to lead.”

Congressman Tom Petri said:

"Today, President Barack Obama delivered his fiscal year 2013 budget to Congress.  In short, this proposal would spend nearly $47 trillion over the next ten years, while adding almost $7 trillion to the national debt.  On top of this, the President has proposed raising taxes by more than $1.4 trillion, and he offers no policies for saving our unsustainable entitlement programs.  The time has come for bold action to bring budget deficits under control, but unfortunately, bold ideas are nowhere to be found in the President's budget."