Budget plan not ideal, Obama concedes

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has said his soon-to-be released budget, already criticized by friends and foes, is not his “ideal plan” but offers “tough reforms” for benefit programs and scuttles some tax breaks for high earners.

That’s a mix, he said in his weekly radio and Internet address, broadcast Saturday, that will provide long-term deficit reduction without harming the economy.

In his first comments about the 2014 spending blueprint he’s set to release Wednesday, Obama said he intends to reduce deficits and provide new money for public-works projects, early education and job training.

“We don’t have to choose between these goals — we can do both,” Obama said.

Obama’s plan for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 calls for slower growth in government benefits programs for the poor, veterans and the elderly, as well as higher taxes, primarily from high earners.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback delivered the Republican radio and Internet address, arguing that “the ideas on how to fix the federal government are now percolating in the states.”

“You see, you don’t change America by changing Washington — you change America by changing the states,” he said. “And that’s exactly what Republican governors are doing across the country — taking a different approach to grow their states’ economies and fix their governments with ideas that work.