Tennessee senators say Obama budget doesn't cut spending enough

The $3.73 trillion budget proposal unveiled today by the White House fails to do enough to limit federal spending, Tennessee's U.S. senators said today.

"I still don't see a sense of urgency from the president about the massive federal debt," Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said in a statement. "His budget calls for too much government borrowing - even though debt is already at a level that makes it harder to create private-sector jobs."

With the U.S. government approaching the debt limit of $14.29 trillion, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Congress needs "a fiscal straitjacket" to curtail spending.

"The president has missed an opportunity to show real leadership on the number-one issue threatening our country's future," U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said in a statement about the White House budget today. "Getting spending under control and reducing our deficit will be difficult without presidential leadership."

Obama's new budget projects that the deficit for the current year will surge to a record high of $1.65 trillion. The White House blueprint released today calls spending cuts and tax increases in the next decade that would cut about 14 percent of the $8 trillion in cumulative debt that would otherwise be added to the government's balance sheet, according to today's Wall Street Journal.

For complete details, see tomorrow's Chattanooga Times Free Press.

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