At a news conference Monday in the U.S. Capitol, Senator Bob Corker, (R-Tn.), commented on the president’s 2013 budget proposal, saying it makes a “mockery of the American people by vastly overstating its claims of reducing future deficits and failing to seriously address the biggest challenge facing the country, namely out-of-control spending in Washington that is generating record deficits and debt and leading to the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare."
He said an honest analysis of the president’s budget virtually eliminates the White House’s claims of deficit reduction when one removes the spending cuts previously enacted in law, alleged savings from money for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that was never going to be spent, and nearly $2 trillion in new taxes.
“This budget makes a mockery of the American people. If a Republican or Democratic governor of Tennessee proposed a budget like this one, they would be run out of the state. Our country faces difficult decisions regarding our unsustainable and growing level of debt, and it is incumbent upon the president and the eventual Republican nominee to lay out a valid course of action to address them,” Senator Corker said in a statement earlier Monday.
“The best thing we can do to create jobs and foster economic growth is to embrace tax reform that does away with most if not all of the $1.2 trillion in loopholes each year, lowers everyone’s rate, and broadens the base; reform Social Security and Medicare so they are solvent for the long haul; and put in place a serious plan for long-term deficit reduction. I remain committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make such a plan a reality.”