Melancon backs deeper spending cuts

President Obama's proposed spending freeze is a "beginning point" for more fiscal belt tightening, according to Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.), a member of the Blue Dog Coalition.

"The cuts that he's proposed represent less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over the next 10 years," Melancon told The Hill Thursday. "That's not enough."

Melancon was echoing recent statements from other Blue Dog Democrats.

Obama has proposed to save $250 billion over the next decade by freezing non-security discretionary spending for three years.

"Now we need to start looking at where can we legitimately make cuts, reduce spending, and get things moving in the right direction," said Melancon, who is leaving his House seat to challenge Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). "We're talking about trying to find hundreds of billions of dollars. It isn't going to be a pretty process."

Melancon declined to suggest what programs should be cut, saying only that staffers were currently "digging into the president's budget" to find additional savings. He did, however, rule out cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.

“Military, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security are off the table right now,” he said, adding that government workers should not get laid off.

"The last thing we need to be doing right now is putting people out of work when we're trying to put people back to work," he said. "Is it an easy task? No."

He continued, "We are hoping that we can put together some meaningful things and hopeful that this president will embrace them and help move it forward."