White House chief of staff Jack Lew toured the Sunday shows previewing President Obama’s budget proposal to be released Monday. He said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”:
The president’s budget is a plan for 10 years, and over the 10 years, what it would do is bring the deficit down to below 3 percent of the economy, which means that we won’t be adding to the deficit based on current spending. Secondly, it’ll bring the debt as a percentage of the economy down to a point that all international financial organizations look at and say is what you need to do to have stability. …
I think that what we have to do is focus on the long term and the short term at the same time. In the short term, we need to keep the economy growing. In the long term, we need to get the deficit under control in a way that builds the economy that can last for the future, where we build a manufacturing base, we have Americans with the skills to do the work for the future, we have energy so that we can provide for more of our energy needs, and we do it in a way that’s consistent with American values so that everyone pays a fair share.
Lew aded on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the budget will aim to jumpstart the economy while including $4 trillion in long-term deficit reduction. “There are a lot of tough cuts, ranging from consolidating field offices and closing them down in places like the agriculture department, to consolidating training programs,” Lew said.
CNN’s Candy Crowley unsuccessfully pressed Lew to concede that the proposal is another “stimulus.”
