President Obama released his budget for the 2012 fiscal year today, and it’s landed with a thud.  ABC’s Jake Tapper quickly pointed out the bottom line on Obama’s $3.7 trillion proposal this morning: “The plan shows that Obama will not take the lead on any aggressive measure to eliminate the nation’s $14 trillion debt. This sets up the Obama administration on a collision course with Republicans, who are calling for serious deficit reduction and spending cuts. . . . At no point in the president’s 10-year projection would the U.S. government spend less than it’s taking in.”

The New York Times writes, “With the budget he is to unveil Monday, President Obama has not opted for the bold, comprehensive approach to reining in the fast-growing federal debt that his own fiscal commission has said is needed, now.” Over the weekend, The Times noted, “The budget confirms that Mr. Obama is not taking the lead in embracing the kind of far-reaching deficit-reduction plan recommended in December by a bipartisan majority of his fiscal commission.”

The Washington Post points out, “Still, $1.1 trillion in savings would barely dent deficits that congressional budget analysts say could approach $12 trillion through 2021. The deficit is projected to approach $1.5 trillion this year and will remain above $1 trillion in 2012 under Obama’s new spending plan, [Democrat Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent] Conrad said.” And according to the USA Today, “The spending plan will still result in a 2012 deficit of $1.1 trillion. Annual deficits would not drop below $600 billion, and over the decade they would add an additional $7.2 trillion in red ink to the national debt.”

The Wall Street Journal adds, “Mr. Obama’s plan to reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years is short of the $4 trillion in reductions the White House’s bipartisan deficit-reduction commission proposed in December. It would bring the country’s deficit to around 3% of the country’s GDP by 2017, an administration official said. That is higher than the 2.3% threshold the deficit-reduction commission proposed. The White House would fail to meet a promise made a year ago to balance the budget outside of interest payments on the federal debt by 2015, which would mean a deficit of 3% of GDP.”

Even worse, at a time when unemployment is still around 9%, in a story headlined, “Obama budget resurrects rejected tax increases,” the AP reports, “The plan unveiled Monday includes tax increases for oil, gas and coal producers, investment managers and U.S.-based multinational corporations. The plan would allow Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012 for individuals making more than $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000.”

Meanwhile, USA Today notes, “budget experts blasted the [president’s] budget.” “‘The entitlement and tax reform agenda will apparently be deferred yet again,’ said Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, a fiscal watchdog group. ‘It makes you wonder what the point was of having a commission in the first place.’” And the Democrat co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission, Erskine Bowles, “said the White House budget request goes ‘nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare,’” according to The Washington Post.

Unfortunately, President Obama’s budget is once again punting on the serious fiscal problems our nation faces. A budget that “will not take the lead on any aggressive measure to eliminate the nation’s $14 trillion debt and continues deficit spending for the next decade is simply not enough.

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