Conrad: Obama's budget doesn't do enough on deficit

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the president's 2012 budget request starts strong but comes up short on fighting the deficit over the long run.

Conrad has been an outspoken advocate for major moves to fight the deficit. He said Monday that the president's budget "gets it about right" in year one, cutting spending while investing in education and infrastructure. However, in the long-term fight against the deficit, Conrad found it lacking.

"We need a much more robust package of deficit and debt reduction over the medium and long term," he said.

Conrad used the president's budget to urge both sides of the aisle to get real about fixing the budget and find a way to work together on the pressing issue.

"What is needed is bipartisan recognition that we must face up to budget realities, and that compromise is essential to the financial security of our country," he said. "Both sides have to be willing to move off their fixed positions and find common ground."

He once again advocated for a comprehensive package, like the one put forward by the president's debt commission.

Conrad said any serious package would have to include spending cuts, changes to entitlement programs like Social Security and comprehensive tax reform that would simplify the tax code while lowering rates and raising more revenue.

The administration estimates that the president's $3.7 trillion budget request, being unveiled Monday, would reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Two-thirds of that reduction would come from cuts to discretionary spending, after President Obama called for a five-year freeze in that sector in his State of the Union address. Savings to programs like Medicare and the lower interest payments on debt that come from reduced spending also count toward those savings.

Tax increases would cover the remaining third of the deficit reduction.