GOP predicts doomsday if Obama budget passed

By PHILIP ELLIOTT
Associated Press Writer
Sun Mar 22, 7:26 pm ET
from Yahoo News

WASHINGTON – Congressional Republicans on Sunday predicted a doomsday scenario of crushing debt and eventual federal bankruptcy if President Barack Obama's massive spending blueprint wins passage.

"The practical implications of this is bankruptcy for the United States," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "There's no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals which are in this budget over the 10-year period that this budget covers, this country will go bankrupt. People will not buy our debt; our dollar will become devalued."

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who sided with Obama on his $787 billion economic stimulus plan, said she couldn't support the White House plan this time.

"It would double the public debt in 5 years, triple it in 10 years. ... That is not sustainable. It poses a threat to the basic health of our economy," Collins said.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the banking committee, said Obama would have to scale back his budget, given a Congressional Budget Office report Friday that the president's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade — more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency.

Shelby predicted that number could reach $20 trillion in coming years as Obama guides the country to "the fast road to financial destruction."

North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate budget committee, acknowledged, "We cannot have debt pile on top of debt." He added: "In the short term, yes, we have got to have added deficits and debt to give lift to this economy, but longer term, we have got to pivot."
Click to read the rest of the article