Heller: Obama ‘late to the party’ with budget-cut plan

RENO -- Republican Rep. Dean Heller, who's running for U.S. Senate, said Wednesday that President Barack Obama is "late to the party" in proposing federal spending cuts.

Heller told the Washoe Republican Women that Obama only proposed a revised budget earlier this month after the GOP-led House decided to get behind Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut spending by $16.2 trillion over the next dozen years. The president countered by offering a plan to cut spending by $4 trillion over 10 years.

"It's amazing you can bring this guy along, actually dragging him, so he can be part of the game," Heller said of Obama in his 30-minute address to the friendly audience.

Heller called Obama's plan insufficient, however, because he doesn't deal with reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare that, he said, will go bankrupt without changes. The Democratic Party has criticized the Republicans for wanting to "end Medicare as we know it," but Heller dismissed such talk as "demagoguing." Instead, Heller said the Republicans want to maintain Medicare for older people and allow more private competition for younger Medicare recipients to choose private plans that may be cheaper for people and the government.

Obama, Heller said, "has abdicated any leadership to Paul Ryan." And he said the United States must get its spending, debt and record deficit under control.

"We can't continue to go down that road," Heller said, adding he's willing to work with Democrats on some sort of compromise.

Heller's speech to the group of more than 100 GOP women comes one day before Obama visits Reno to hold a town hall to tout his economic policies.

It also came just hours before Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., was scheduled to address the Nevada Legislature. Every member of Nevada's congressional delegation speaks to the Legislature when it meets every two years. Heller postponed his scheduled Thursday address to the body so he could attend a service for Milton Glick, the University of Nevada, Reno president who died this past weekend from a stroke. Heller has not yet rescheduled his speech.

Heller and Berkley are running to replace U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who's retiring in 2012 because of an extramarital affair and continuing ethics investigation.

Heller is expected to face little competition to win the GOP nomination. And Berkley also is expected to become the Democratic nominee, although she will need to get past Las Vegas businessman Byron Georgiou, who is planning to spend a lot of his money to compete in the primary.

Contact reporter Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.