GOP calls Obama's bluff on budget with $375 billion in cuts

CNN:

The House Republican leadership upped the ante Thursday in the ongoing debate over the size and scope of the federal budget, unveiling a proposal to cut spending by $375 billion over the next five years.

The bulk of the GOP's proposed savings would come from capping nondefense discretionary spending at the level of inflation.

Among other things, the GOP proposal would also create a government spending review commission and eliminate retirement payments for federal workers who retire before the age of 62.

President Obama "challenged us to come up with budget savings, and today House Republicans encourage him to not only look over our proposed ... common-sense taxpayer savings, but to join our effort," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said in a statement.

"For the sake of our young people and America's long-term fiscal viability, Congress simply cannot keep spending money that the president himself admits we don't have."

...

It probably will not take too many news cycles before the Democrats are charging the Republicans with being heartless shrews who want to starve kids and old people and put working Americans out of a job. That has been their spiel for generations, but it was the Republicans who forced Bill Clinton to balance the budget and we were still a prosperous country.