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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Scranton said Monday he is still reviewing President Barack Obama’s deficit-reduction plan, though he did endorse the “balanced approach” of mixing spending cuts with new tax revenues.
“I do agree that we need a balanced approach and that we all need to share in the national burden,” Casey, D-Scranton, said in a statement. “We should enact smart spending cuts as well as tax reform so we can keep Pennsylvania’s economy growing and create jobs. I will be considering the President’s proposal in light of those two goals.”
But GOP U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Zionsville, a member of the so-called congressional supercommittee charged with coming up with at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings this year by this summer’s debt ceiling deal, slammed Obama’s proposal as “political posturing.”
Toomey said in a statement that he welcomes Obama “putting some ideas on the table and his overall goal of cutting the federal deficit.”
But, Toomey added, Obama’s deficit reduction strategy “sometimes seems more defined by political posturing, such as recycling tax hikes that even lawmakers in his own party have publicly opposed. With the select committee’s deadline looming, we do not have time to waste on political games and pushing big tax increases that will only make our economy weaker for all Americans.”
U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, too, charged that Obama was playing politics.
“There are some things I like and some things I don’t like about what the president said,” Barletta said via email. “I like lowering the corporate tax rate and eliminating the loopholes, but I don’t like raising taxes on the job creators. … To me, this sounded more like a campaign speech rather than a policy change, and what we need is a policy change since it’s clear that the president’s policies aren’t working,” Barletta said.
GOP Rep. Tom Marino of Lycoming Township did not comment Monday on Obama’s proposal, but he has opposed allowing the President George W. Bush-era tax cuts on wealthier Americans to expire and favored making all the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent.