Quotations on President Bush's proposed fiscal 2008 budget:
"Our priority is to protect the American people. And our priority is to make sure our troops have what it takes to do their jobs. We also have got priorities in national parks and education and health care."
_President Bush
"I hope Democrats will give the president's proposal the due consideration it deserves. Even more important, I hope Democrats will join us in taking the necessary steps to balance the budget without raising taxes."
_House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio
"The day of the blank check for the president for the war is over. We're going to support our troops in harm's way, but we want to know how this money is being spent and how soon it takes us to ending the war and getting our troops home safely."
_House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
"The president's budget makes clear that we can balance the budget in five years without raising taxes or allowing the tax relief that has fueled our economic growth to expire."
_House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
"Quite honestly, Humpty Dumpty could reach balance in the next five years" using the assumptions that Bush made.
_Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee
"The president calls for nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts, so in the name of balancing the budget by 2012, he hits domestic priorities such as health care, education and the environment."
_Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., the chairman of the House Budget Committee
"Conveniently, most of Bush's proposed budget restraint comes after he has left office."
_Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies, Cato Institute, a libertarian research center
"School districts will not see any increase in funding for their current programs to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind, and that is what the states and school districts have been complaining about."
_Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a public policy group
"The budget uses deception to hide a massive increase in debt, and its priorities are disconnected from the needs of middle-class Americans."
_Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
"What I'm going to do for my own part is scrub this supplemental, line by line, to make sure what is in there is truly what is needed to fight this war."
_Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee
"Last November, Americans voted for a new direction. Apparently President Bush still hasn't gotten the message. ... There is no clearer sign of the president's misplaced priorities than asking our seniors to sacrifice while leading the largest expansion of American resources in Iraq this country has seen."
_House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois
"By turning defense funding into a political issue, Democrats risk pitting taxpayers against troops."
_House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam of Florida
"We cannot provide an adequate national defense on the cheap, but neither can we afford to simply ratify the president's request without performing the due diligence and oversight our Constitution requires."
_Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee
"President Bush's proposed budget ... is the wrong budget at the wrong time and would harm those seniors who depend upon America's hospitals."
_Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals
"He flat-lines family-planning services ... yet proposes another huge increase, $28 million more, for unproven `abstinence-only' programs that censor teachers from giving teens accurate information on topics like birth control."
_ Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion-rights group
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(McClatchy Newspapers correspondents Margaret Talev, Renee Schoof and Steven Thomma contributed.)
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(c) 2007, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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