GOP congresswoman slams Obama budget

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- With President Obama's federal budget, all roads lead to Athens, Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Saturday in the GOP weekly national media address.

"Well, in the budget he submitted this week to Congress, the president admitted he won't keep his promise.  He won't even come close. Because of the president's failure to control spending, the government will run trillion-dollar deficits in each of his four years in office," the congresswoman from eastern Washington state said.

"The president's budget isn't a blueprint for America -- it's a roadmap to Greece," she said in a slam referring to Greece, which is struggling to meet fiscal targets so it can qualify for a $170 billion international bailout loan.

McMorris Rodgers also said President Obama had dropped the ball on a pledge to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first four years in office.

She accused the president of grandstanding and relying on gimmicks.

"More than half of the proposed savings in the president's budget for the next year -- about $2 trillion -- are already law. These savings come from the Budget Control Act -- the bill congressional Republicans insisted that the president sign last year in response to his demand for an increase in the nation's debt limit," she said.

"Another almost $1 trillion in savings comes from what we call the 'war gimmick' -- money that was never requested and will never be spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those aren't real savings," she said.