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GOP predicts doomsday if Obama budget passed

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-23 07:58

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.

In this March 16, 2009 file photo, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner makes remarks to small business owners, community lenders and members of Congress in the East Room of the White House in Washington. [Agencies]

But a White House adviser dismissed the negative assessments, saying she is "incredibly confident" that the president's policies will "do the job" for the economy.

In a TV interview, Obama himself laughed when discussing the dire state of parts of the economy -- and ascribed his laughter to "gallows humor."

White House Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christina Romer insisted that the nation's flailing economy will be rebounding by 2010.

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Administration officials -- and the president himself -- have taken a cheerier tone despite economic indicators that are anything but positive.

"I have every expectation, as do private forecasters, that we will bottom out this year and actually be growing again by the end of the year," Romer said.

The president, in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News' "60 Minutes," talked about the need to spend taxpayer money to save financial firms and the auto industry.

"I just want to say that the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry," Obama said with a laugh.

Interviewer Steve Kroft asked how that laughter might be perceived, given the economy's troubles.

"There's got to be a little gallows humor to get you through the day," Obama said. "If you had said to us a year ago that the least of my problems would be Iraq, which is still a pretty serious problem, I don't think anybody would have believed it."

Republicans say Obama's budget is no laughing matter.

Senate Republicans warned of deficits that could climb to $20 trillion in coming years and a weakened dollar if Obama and his Democratic allies get their proposed $3.6 trillion budget plan passed.

"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."

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