GOP lawmaker: Obama is Chamberlain, not Churchill on budget

Sen. Orrin Hatch on Monday compared President Obama unfavorably with 1930s British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, accused Obama of surrendering on the budget like Chamberlain surrendered Czechoslovakia to Germany. 

“The United States is demanding a Churchill on the issue of deficits and debt, but the administration has delivered us a Chamberlain,” Hatch said on the floor Monday, in a clear reference to Chamberlain’s foreign policy of “appeasement.”

Hatch had several metaphors at the ready for describing the Obama budget, which would raise taxes and spending and would continue to lead to increased spending outlays into the foreseeable future. Hatch rejected Obama’s proposal because it fails to recognize that “we are out of money.”

“It is the equivalent of taking your fiancee to dinner, asking her to marry you, and then leaving her to take care of the check with your maxed-out credit cards and underwater mortgage and the bill for the ring,” Hatch said. “This budget is quite simply an abdication of adult responsibility, and it is a particular abdication of the responsibility of the president of the United States, who takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend our Constitution.

“With due respect, the budget released today is a sorry joke,” Hatch said. “This budget amounts to gross negligence.”

President Obama “will be out working on his presidential library while Americans are left holding the bag for his big spending policies. He may not want to admit it, but the most fitting volume for his library might be The Road to Serfdom.”

In case he wasn’t clear, Hatch added that “obviously” he is not a fan of the Obama budget proposal.