CRFB in the News

With the release of the President's budget yesterday, CRFB has received a ton of media coverage, including The Washington Post, Financial Times, CNN, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Congressional Quarterly, News Hour, and many others.

Here are some notable quotes:

MacGuineas: "I would say it is a good first step in the right direction of starting to deal with deficits, but, at this point, we should be a lot farther along. We need to be taking a lot more steps. So much more is going to have to be done in terms of debt reduction. And I think the president's going to have to set the stage by preparing the country and helping the Congress work together to have a realistic understanding that it's going to take some pretty significant policy changes, which aren't yet contained in this budget. We're going to have to go farther. " (News Hour)

MacGuineas: "So while I still worry about the economy, and I'm not opposed to some level of stimulus particularly if we can find the right measures to help increase jobs, at the same time we need to put in place a gradual deficit reduction plan to reassure those global credit markets that we are on the right track. Right now we're not." (Bloomberg TV)

"Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, echoed that view, saying that any serious proposal to restrain deficits would require politically painful proposals, such as increasing the retirement age and limiting Social Security benefits for high earners. That kind of plan would be dead on arrival in an election year, she said. She warned, though, that Obama should be doing a better job now of preparing the public for the hard choices ahead." (Washington Post)

Goldwein: "This year's cuts seem no more ambitious, and in fact seem a little less ambitious, which is not what I would have hoped. Having proposed a non-security discretionary spending freeze for three years, I would have thought the administration would be a little more aggressive in cutting real waste to meet that freeze." (Washington Times)

MacGuineas: "A small spending freeze, some minor tax reforms to raise revenues and a budget commission are all excellent ideas. But this budget doesn't go nearly far enough, and it will require presidential leadership to develop a responsible fiscal plan." (Miami Herald)