Editorial Reaction to Obama's Budget

Editorials across the country are ripping the Obama administration's proposed budget. (The Courier-Journal, in contrast, could not be bothered to write an editorial about the budget.)

Here are some excerpts from papers that usually line up behind The One:

Washington Post: "The president punted. Having been given the chance, the cover and the push by the fiscal commission he created to take bold steps to raise revenue and curb entitlement spending, President Obama, in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal, chose instead to duck. To duck, and to mask some of the ducking with the sort of budgetary gimmicks he once derided."

USA Today: "He whiffed." “President Obama likes to talk about those ‘Sputnik moments’ when the nation rises to difficult challenges like the one posed by the Soviet space program in the 1950s. On Monday, he had a chance to turn his federal budget proposal into his own such moment. He whiffed. …"

Los Angeles Times: "The proposal was a remarkably tame response to Washington's fiscal problems, not the bold statement about belt-tightening that the White House had suggested was coming. Yet the biggest shortcoming is that it all but ignored the most important long-term financial challenge, which is the growing cost of entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid.”

The Detroit News channeled those whose New Year's willpower is fading: "What we're getting from the Obama Administration is one of those weight loss programs that pretend it can shrink your waistline while allowing you to eat whatever you like. In this case, the president assures us we can gorge on Keynesian treats and still someday get back into our Clinton-era jeans.”

And for a take from the Wall Street Journal -- admittedly no friend of Obama's -- but a great turn of phrase: "This was supposed to be the moment we were all waiting for. After three years of historic deficits that have added almost $4.5 trillion to the national debt, President Obama was finally going to get serious about fiscal discipline. Instead, what landed on Congress's doorstep on Monday was a White House budget that increases deficits above the spending baseline for the next two years. Hosni Mubarak was more in touch with reality last Thursday night.” (Emphasis added.) ("Hosni Mubarak"; that's gotta hurt.)