Cantor: Town halls are 'political theater'

RENO, Nev., April 21 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's town-hall "political theater" makes it hard to take his debt panel seriously, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's office said.

"It's hard to take President Obama's latest fiscal commission seriously or as a sincere effort to tackle our debt crisis while he's out campaigning and engaging in such pure political theater," Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said after Obama completed the second of three campaign-style town hall meetings to discuss his vision for bringing down the deficit.

Obama's second town hall forum was held Wednesday at Facebook Inc. headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., after a similar forum at a Virginia community college Tuesday. He was to hold a third one at a renewable-energy company in Reno, Nev., Thursday.

The GOP budget blueprint, presented April 5 by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and passed by House Republicans April 15, promises to cut spending $5.8 trillion in 10 years solely through program cuts. Most economists say it would actually trim the budget $4.3 trillion to $4.4 trillion.

The White House plan, which Obama outlined in a speech April 13, would cut the deficit $4 trillion over 12 years through a mix of deep cuts in military and domestic spending, higher taxes on the wealthy and changes to social-welfare programs.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday the GOP blueprint "cannot and will not become law."

"If we're serious about doing something, we have to work together," he said aboard Air Force One en route to San Francisco. "That's what the American people expect us to do."

During the Facebook forum, streamed live over the Internet, Obama said current U.S. expenses and revenues were "unsustainable," but he said the Republican plan to preserve tax breaks while cutting funds from programs such as clean energy, education and transportation, while changing the character of Medicare and Medicaid, was "fairly radical."

"I do think Mr. Ryan is sincere. I think he's a patriot," Obama told the roughly 1,000 Facebook employees and Silicon Valley luminaries in attendance. "I think he wants to solve a real problem, which is our long-term deficit. But I think that what he and the other Republicans in the House of Representatives also want to do is change our social compact in a pretty fundamental way."

"I guess you could call that bold," Obama said. "I would call it shortsighted."

California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro later criticized Obama's desire to maintain social programs with such a high deficit.

"A bankrupt government wouldn't help anyone," the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News quoted Del Beccaro as saying.

Former state GOP Chairman Ron Nehring accused Obama of fanning "class warfare," the newspaper said.

Obama's Thursday town hall meeting in Reno takes place at ElectraTherm Inc., near Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

The 11:50 a.m. PDT forum for about 400 employees, students and a few elected officials will continue the theme of his last two forums, the White House said. But Obama will argue "there are areas that we can't afford to cut and that is investment in clean energy and innovative technology," a White House spokeswoman told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

ElectraTherm "creates fuel-free, emissions-free power by capturing readily available waste heat," the company's Web site says. The ElectraTherm Green Machine "is the world's first commercially viable waste heat generator," the site says.

Obama spoke at two political fundraisers in San Francisco Wednesday night and is to speak at three more in Los Angeles Thursday.