Weekend talk to hit economy, war

Obama administration officials will hit the Sunday talk shows to push the president’s budget plan, and to explain the administration’s goals for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the next year and a half.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, will sit down with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” while White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel will join CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

{mosads}Republicans have howled at the size of the administration’s domestic spending plans. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the number two Republican in the Senate, and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, will be on “Fox News Sunday”, and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House Minority Whip, will follow Orszag on “This Week.”

Following the president’s announcement this week that the U.S. would withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will stop by several shows to offer his assessment of the plans.

Military leaders have been largely supportive of the proposal, which will seek to pull most of the 100,000-plus troops within the next eighteen months. Mullen will stop by “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will sit down for his first interview following the inauguration.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Armed Services Committee’s Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, will follow Mullen on “State of the Union.”