Taxpayer group dings both GOP and White House budget proposals

“One of the worst things about blunt budget cutting instruments like setting a spending level or across the board cuts is that they treat everything in the budget the same,” the release reads. “This defies common sense.”

Officials from both parties have been offering remedies lately for the federal budget deficit, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated this week would grow to $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2011. 

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Obama called for freezing non-security discretionary spending for five years. And on the Republican side, there have been proposals to roll spending back to either 2008 or 2006 levels. 

In its release, Taxpayers for Common Sense came out against across-the-board cuts because it was unfair to treat all the programs the same – some initiatives, they said, probably deserve increased funding, while others could be thoroughly defunded. 

“Just like the late night infomercial selling the miracle weight loss gimmick, seductive quick and easy ‘solutions’ are just going to cost us more money and accomplish little,” the release reads. 

The group also called for comprehensive tax reform to get rid of what it deemed “wasteful or unnecessary tax expenditures.”