Statement of Third Way Economic Program Director Anne Kim on the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 Budget
February 01, 2010
Ten years ago, the decade ended with President Clinton leaving office with a $236 billion budget surplus. Now, after a decade of profligate spending, free tax cuts, and a whipsawed economy, the President today has announced a budget plan that – despite a $1.3 trillion deficit – is actually fiscally responsible. That is how far the budget fortunes of this nation have fallen.
We applaud President Obama for making the first tough budget choices in Washington in ten years. We believe the domestic spending budget freeze is the first step in turning the nation’s fiscal situation around. We support the President’s shifting of budget priorities toward the middle class who are the engines of the nation’s economy and will be the leaders of the economic recovery. As endorsers of the Conrad-Gregg budget commission, Third Way also commends the President for including a bipartisan executive budget commission in his blueprint.
Most of those who argue that the President’s budget represents more of the same fiscal irresponsibility should simply look in the mirror. The nation’s fiscal collapse occurred mostly on their watch. The path back to fiscal sanity will be long and hard. Those first steps were taken today.
