Obama hails G-20 progress as Republicans continue attacks on the budget

The President this week hailed the progress made at the recent G-20 summit in London, saying that his visit helped lay the groundwork for a newly strengthened global financial system that would help safeguard America's future prosperity.

The President faced several daunting challenges in London, including earning support for broader stimulus packages in other countries, and projecting the view of a strong America capable of asserting global leadership.

The President used his weekly address to help explain how the week's challenging work related to America's future. "If people in other countries cannot spend," Obama said, "that means they cannot buy the goods we produce here in America, which means more lost jobs and more families hurting."

The President said that working with other nations to stabilize the global financial system presented "the challenge of our time." "Ultimately," he said, "the only way out of a recession that is global in scope is with a response that is global in coordination."

Congressman Paul Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, defended the alternate budget this week proposed by Congressional Republicans, characterizing it as a measured and appropriate response during a time of fiscal crisis.

"Our budget gives priority to national defense and veterans health care," he explained. "We freeze all other discretionary spending for five years we enact a spending cap backed up by tough budget enforcement. American families are making sacrifices and tightening their belts Washington should do the same. Our budget also takes steps toward health care reform and retirement security."

By contrast, Ryan warned that the President's budget would make the crisis "much much worse."

"America is not the greatest nation on Earth by chance," he said. "We earned this greatness by rewarding individual achievement, by advancing and protecting natural rights, and by embracing freedom. Our budget reflects those principles, and we offer the American people a better way forward."

Obama expresses support for flood victims as Republicans criticize the budget

In his weekly address, President Obama expressed his support for the people affected by the flooding in the Northwest and pledged to provide federal assistance.

Snow and rain have conspired to raise the Red River in North Dakota to its highest recorded level, 40.67 feet. Officials are concerned that levies and dikes will be ineffective if the river rises above 43 feet.

Several thousand people in Fargo and neighboring Moorehead have already been evacuated, including prison inmates and hospital patients.

In response, the President this week declared a major disaster area in North Dakota and Minnesota, and dispatched to the area the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Nancy Ward.

"I will continue to monitor the situation carefully," the President vowed. "We will do what must be done to help in concert with state and local agencies and non-profit organizations – and volunteers who are doing so much to aid the response effort."

The President commended the volunteers who helped to fill sandbags and reinforce the levies, calling their assistance "integral to our response."

"In facing sudden crises or more stubborn challenges," Obama said, "the truth is we are all in this together – as neighbors and fellow citizens."

The President added that he was looking forward to signing the Public Service bill that recently cleared both the House and Senate.

The Republican address this week was delivered by the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg. Republicans have struggled in the past weeks to adequately describe their opposition to the budget, resorting mostly to criticisms that the spending plan is too large and too expensive.

"You may have heard this before," Gregg acknowledged, "that the budget of the President spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much." Gregg maintained that the budget triple the size of the national debt while levying "the largest tax increase in history, much of it aimed at taxing small business people."

"These are staggering numbers," he said, "and represent an extraordinary move of our government to the left."

The Senator specifically opposed the President's energy plans and efforts to limit the private sector's influence over the health care sector.

"If you do not spend too much, if you do not tax too much, if you do not borrow too much," he concluded, "we can leave our children a better nation where they will have even greater opportunity for prosperity, peace and freedom."

President, Republicans, return focus to the budget

Both President Obama and Republicans attempted through their weekly addresses to further define the Administration's proposed federal budget.

Congress this week will begin deliberation over the $3.6 trillion spending outline, which the President described as an "economic blueprint for our future."

Acknowledging that negotiations and compromises with the Congress are a "normal and healthy part of the process," the President laid out four principles that he would like the final budget to honor. The principles, largely reiterations of the points the President has previously made, include energy independence, comprehensive education reform, health care reform, and deficit control.

"These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air," the President said. "They are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on foreign oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit."

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, shot back that the budget was too risky and too expensive.

"This astronomical record federal deficit would be accompanied by the largest tax increases in history," Barbour said. "It’s breathtaking," he continued. "The Obama budget spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much."

Barbour singled out the President's proposed cap and trade system to control greenhouse gasses, saying that the potential cost would "clobber" families.

Neither the President nor Governor Barbour mentioned A.I.G. and the extravagant bailout bonuses that dominated the past week's news coverage.

Congress hopes to complete work on the budget resolution before its Easter recess.

President calls for FDA reform as Republicans continue to attack the budget

Acknowledging that the Food and Drug Administration is "underfunded and understaffed," President Obama vowed in his weekly address to renew the nation's commitment to food safety.

The President decried the current patchwork of food safety regulation, much of which was enacted around the turn of the century, as outdated and ineffective. The FDA has the capacity to inspect only about 5% of the food processing plants and warehouses. "That is a hazard to public health," Obama said. "It is unacceptable."

President Obama said he approached food safety "not just as your President, but as a parent."

"When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week. No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch."

The government will direct $1 billion to modernize labs and hire additional food safety inspectors to help prevent recurrences of the spinach contamination of 2006 and the recent outbreak of salmonella at the Peanut Corporation of America.

The President announced the nomination of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as Commissioner of the FDA along with Dr. Joshua Sharfstein as Principal Deputy Commissioner. The Administration will also create a Food Safety Working Group chaired by the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture and other senior officials to recommend upgrades to our food safety laws.

Consumers Union has called for the Food and Drug Administration to inspect all food processing facilities at least once per year. CU strongly believes that the best way to safeguard our food supply is to unify the government's food safety functions under a single agency.

Meanwhile, the Senate's top Republican tax writer, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, used the Republican weekly address to deliver a scathing attack on the Administration's tax plans.

"[The President's] plans fail to recognize that Americans are not an endless source of tax dollars to pay for government spending," Grassley said, arguing that raising taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 would be devastating for small businesses.

"Tell these business owners their taxes will go up. Odds are, they'll cut spending. They'll cancel orders for new equipment, cut health insurance for their employees, stop hiring, and lay people off.

Grassley said that, if enacted, the President's budget would amount to the "biggest tax increase in history."

"Americans need leadership, and they need confidence now," Grassley continued. "They need their President and their elected representatives to connect all the dots. Jobs are hard-won. The government should first, do no harm."