Spending cuts must go deeper

Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph Herald: It’s good to see both Democrats and Republicans wanting to cut the federal budget. It’s also good to see some efforts made toward compromise. That seemed unlikely in the current political climate.

However, while President Obama’s budget is not a bad start, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Obama’s budget chops $38 billion from current levels and $78 billion from his request of more than a year ago. But spending still is in the trillions — the highest level since World War II.

After spending his way through his first year in office, Obama now talks the talk of a deficit hawk, ready to change his ways. Yet Obama exacerbates the situation with as much as $8 trillion in new spending over the next decade.

Tax Day marked the two-year anniversary of the president’s pledge to simplify the tax code and overhaul corporate taxes to spur job creation. But there has yet to be any explanation of what shape that reform would take.

Fixing the budget will require more than vague references to how he will fix Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Mostly what the president has talked about is why the Republicans’ plan for entitlements would be tragic for the country. Let’s hear the alternative — because this problem doesn’t get fixed without putting those programs on the chopping block.

The Republicans have their own untouchable in military spending. Like Obama on entitlements, reducing defense spending has to be in the mix.