GOP: BAM COOKS THE BUDGET BOOKS

By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent

Last updated: 2:04 am

March 4, 2009 

Posted: 1:44 am

March 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - Republicans slammed President Obama for "cooking the books" in his new budget proposal, as the administration said this year's $1.75 trillion deficit was caused a by a crisis unlike any in generations.

GOP lawmakers grilled Peter Orszag, Obama's budget chief, in his first testimony on Capitol Hill to defend the tax and spending plan he unveiled last week.

"The numbers in this budget are staggeringly high," fumed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

"If these scenarios in this baseline don't play themselves out, then they'll be even higher."

Orszag replied: "The new administration has inherited an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who would oversee more than $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, got similar treatment.

(Amazing... This man is a tax cheat himself who has been caught, of course, it did not matter. sigh, he was needed by Obama and Obama laid his hands on him and blessed him and said all was ok in the world, so we end up with a tax cheat running the Treasury... and guess what else.. he is a buffoon... this man is was head of the New York Fed (that helped contribute to this mess) and was tapped to solve our problems over a year ago by Bush... who did not know he was a tax cheat, who would have guessed since he was head of the New York Fed? Oh it's even better... read the bio of this great wonder Obama could not live without on his team... it will amaze you and leave you asking why did we need someone who can not respect rules, if there is one man who proves the "Peter Principle" it is Geithner!  In government and in big business, one rises to their level of incompetence, and he has reached his peak!)

"It looks like somebody's cooking the books," grumbled Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

"The president's budget increases taxes on every American, and does so during a recession," Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) told Geithner.

Geithner countered that tax increases don't kick in until 2011, when the administration is projecting that a recovery would be under way.

Although Ryan, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, praised some aspects of the budget, he also ripped into accounting methods - like budgeting for high initial war costs that demonstrate a savings later.

"So you assume in your budget that we're going to have a surge in 10 years [in Iraq], even though a surge, by definition, is up, then back down," Ryan said, pressing Orszag.

"To go back, $1.6 trillion of these savings is because you are saying we are not going to have a surge for 10 years, we are going to ramp it down," he continued.

Orszag replied: "About a trillion-and-a-half dollars is because the war ends more quickly under this budget then we think the alternative would have been."

Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) accused Obama of putting up a "trifecta of trillions" - with the stimulus package, appropriations spending and budget deficits.

He said the deficit - which is projected to fall from $1.75 trillion to $533 billion over a decade - showed "red ink as far as the eye can see."