'Disappointed'

WASHINGTON-House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., started Tuesday morning's hearing by reading the current edition of The Washington Post aloud to White House budget director Jack Lew.

The Post's liberal editorial board wrote that President Obama "punted" on the fiscal year 2012 budget, which the White House published Monday. Lew traveled to Capitol Hill to defend it, while the president did the same at a concurrent press conference at the White House.

"You guys are pretty impatient," Obama told the media. "If something doesn't happen today, then the assumption is it isn't going to happen."

Ryan said the president had an opportunity to make hard decisions on spending: "The president has disappointed us all by declining that opportunity."

The budget makes $400 billion in cuts over the next decade, but this year's deficit will pile up to a record $1.6 trillion. Next year's budget deficit is projected to be a bit lower, at $1.1 trillion. Lew acknowledged that the White House projections didn't show a balanced budget in view.

"I know it's easy for pundits on the outside to dismiss the president's budget, but this is a starting point," Lew explained. But he added that this was "possibly the toughest budget a Democratic president has ever put forward."

Lew, who was President Clinton's budget director, pointed out that he oversaw three years of budget surpluses, and he planned to leave the country's finances in good shape again (Republicans controlled Congress at the time). On the massive deficit spending since his tenure, Lew said, "I don't exaggerate when I say it breaks my heart."

Ryan acknowledged that both parties "share the blame" for the nation's fiscal crisis, but added that President Obama "accelerated" the problem.

"What's so frustrating about this-you know the drivers of our debt are the entitlement programs and you do nothing to address that," Ryan said. "When people elect a president, they expect a president to lead."

When asked about the lack of a plan to deal with cash-strapped programs such as Social Security and Medicare, Obama told the press, "Look at the history of how these deals get done. Typically it's not because there's an Obama plan out there. It's because Democrats and Republicans are committed to tackling this in a serious way. I'm not suggesting we don't have to do more."

Republicans have shown their own nervousness about entitlement reform-and specifically Ryan's ideas to address the impending fiscal doom in Social Security and Medicare, drastic solutions he outlined in his plan "Roadmap for America." Before he was a congressman, Ryan was a Senate staffer and is notoriously nerdy about numbers, so he and Lew greeted each other collegially but bantered about specific charts and figures in the president's proposal.

Even Democrats were less than effusive about the budget. The top Democrat on the Budget Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Connecticut, called it "an important effort to hit the right note." Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., called the budget "a pretty credible blueprint." At one point Van Hollen called it a "tough love budget," to which Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, rejoined, "If this was the tough love my father showed me when I was young I would still be a juvenile delinquent."

This week the House will take up a bill to fund the government through the rest of the current fiscal year-the government currently only has funding through March 4. The Republican proposal slashes spending for the next several months by $100 billion, as they promised during campaign season, but the Senate is unlikely to pass all of the cuts. Once Congress passes funding for the rest of the current fiscal year, then they'll begin working on a budget for fiscal year 2012. The Democratic-controlled Congress didn't pass a budget last year, instead passing a "continuing resolution" that continues funding at levels from the previous budget.

The tension between a Democratic Senate and a Republican House has raised speculation that nothing would pass, resulting in a government shutdown. "We all want to avoid a situation like that," Lew said, recalling that the 1994 shutdown was "very unpleasant."