Democratic Senator slams Obama on budget

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin slams Obama on budget

Catalina Camia
USA Today
Mar 08, 2011

Freshman Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin today blasted President Obama for not offering leadership on the budget and spending cuts.

Manchin, who is up for re-election next year, denounced both a Democratic and Republican proposal to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year. The Senate will vote on both plans today, but neither is expected to get the 60 votes needed for passage.

But Manchin's toughest criticism was directed at Obama, saying "the most powerful person" when it comes to avoiding a government shutdown over the budget "has failed to lead this debate or offer a serious proposal for spending and cuts."

Manchin, a former governor, said it is Obama's responsibility -- not Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., or House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio -- to sit down with both parties in Congress and "hammer out a real bipartisan compromise."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president's "leadership and seriousness about the need to live within our means" and "cut spending where we can is quite clear."

The West Virginia senator was elected in November to serve out the remaining term of Democrat Robert Byrd, who died last summer. Manchin intends to run for a full term in November 2012.

This is all fine and well, but how much does Manchin think should be cut from the budget? That's what I want to know, because I don't think that the Republican's $57 billion in cuts is not a serious effort either. We should be able to cut much more than that from a nearly 4 TRILLION dollar budget.