Hoyer advises critics to live with big deficits

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that he
and other House members concerned about the big budget deficits projected by
President Obama may have to live with them because of the recession.

Hoyer told reporters Thursday that while he hoped for
smaller deficits, he believed that the need to address the economic crisis will
make those hard to achieve.

{mosads}”I think you are correct when you say they’re not
good enough,” Hoyer said of the White House’s deficit projections.
“I’m not sure that leads to the conclusion that’s not the best we can
do.”

Hoyer said he spoke last weekend to former Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who told him that the economic downturn was a
“200-year event.”

“If that’s the case, these deficits are caused by an
extraordinary set of circumstances for which we have no model to get from here
to there,” Hoyer said.

President Obama’s budget blueprint expects the fiscal
year 2009 deficit to be approximately $1.75 trillion. Obama wants to
cut the deficit to $533 billion by the end of his first term, primarily through
repealing income tax cuts for the wealthy and ending the Iraq war. Obama would
allow deficits to rise again in 2014 and years beyond, though they would remain
at approximately 3 percent of the gross domestic product.

Hoyer said that most House members, including fiscally
conservative Blue Dog Democrats, have said that it will be “difficult to
get better numbers.” He said that Blue Dogs believe in the principle of
balancing the budget but they are also “pragmatic realists” who want
to do the best possible.

Hoyer said that the budget plan was “ambitious”
and consistent with what the president had proposed last year, while he was running
for office.

Hoyer praised the budget proposal as “honest”
because it didn’t hide costs like past administrations’ budgets had done.

The House plans to take up the budget by the week of
March 30, Hoyer said. The House also plans to consider soon two of the more
controversial items in the White House budget proposal, healthcare reform and a
cap-and-trade system to stem global warming, Hoyer said.

He added that the cap-and-trade bill has “broad
support” from Democrats and may come before House members by the August
break.

Hoyer said he has spoken to White House budget director
Peter Orszag about using the budget reconciliation process to win passage for
the healthcare and climate change bills. Any legislation attached to
reconciliation bills would need only a simple majority to pass through the
Senate. Republicans, who still have enough votes for a filibuster, would likely
recoil at the use of a special process to push through items they oppose.

Hoyer said that while he’s open to using the
reconciliation process, Senate Democrats are still holding out hope that they
can get broad support for their agenda. He noted that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
has said he wants a huge majority — as many as 80 votes — for healthcare
reform.

“If he has 80 votes, then we don’t need
reconciliation,” Hoyer said.