GOP lawmakers: Obama's budget is 'irresponsible,' 'avoidance,' 'mockery'

Republican lawmakers came out in harsh opposition to President Obama's budget proposal Monday, calling it everything from "utterly irresponsible to "a mockery of the American people."

House and Senate members criticized the budget for not doing enough to reduce the U.S. debt and deficit, as well as avoiding reforms to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicaid.

"The most important thing today is what the president's budget says and what it will do. It lays out his plan for the future and it is utterly irresponsible," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" Monday.

"What he's proposing does not change American's debt course," he added.

Obama sent Congress a $3.8T budget proposal Monday that he says is a “reflection of shared responsibility” and aims to pour billions of dollars in increased spending into the down economy to inject some immediate life there.

“The economy is growing stronger, recovery is speeding up and the last thing we can afford to do right now is to go back to the very policies that got us into this mess in the first place,” said Obama at at Northern Virginia Community College Monday.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of government spending, also slammed Obama's budget proposal, details of which were released over the weekend.

"I wish we'd actually have a real budget that takes into account the problems we have with entitlement programs and discretionary spending," said Flake on MSNBC's "Morning Joe Monday.

However, he acknowledged that the country's fiscal problems existed before Obama got to the Oval Office.

The White House insists that the budget does not avoid entitlement programs. “I don’t think we take a pass,” Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients told reporters.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), speaking as a guest panelist on CNN's "Starting Point," said "we can not support" the budget because it does not do enough to reduce the deficit and rein in spending.

"The federal government has an addiction to the taxpayers money," she said. "The debt is higher than it has ever been."

Blackburn called for an across-the-board reduction in spending that would include cuts to education, military spending and public workers.

Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R), who co-chaired the deficit-reduction supercommittee, said on CNN Monday that he agreed with Blackburn's assessment, and blasted the president for failing to fulfill his deficit-reduction promise.

"I'm bitterly disappointed in two respects. No. 1, the president told us that at the end of his first term he would cut the deficit in half," he said on CNN, "Second of all, there's a debt crisis and the president's budget doesn't deal with it."

He told CNN that there could be individual programs within the administration's budget he could consider, but that in its "totality" he can not support the plan.

House Budget Committee member James Lankford (R-Okla. joined the chorus of GOP lawmakers attacking Obama for not doing enough to live up to his promise to reduce the deficit, speaking on Fox Business News Monday. "This is the same president that just a few years ago said he was going to cut the deficit in half," Lankford said.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called the budget a "mockery of the American people" and told reporters during a press conference that he is "highly disappointed."

Speaking on the Senate floor Monday, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the budget was a "campaign document" and accused the president of "shirking his responsibility."

Republicans will release their own spending plan through House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in March.

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