WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- President Barack Obama praised lawmakers for restoring a measure that aims to bing federal spending under control in his weekly radio address Saturday, but expressed concern that politics may still get in the way of reducing the massive deficit.
Obama also vowed in his weekly speech to press ahead with an executive order to create a new bipartisan fiscal commission charged with recommending ways to reduce the deficit--a measure that has faced opposition from some Republicans.
"After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility," Obama said.
"It's easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What's hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that's what we must do."
Obama made his remarks the day after he signed new legislation which will restore a rule requiring any new mandatory spending to be offset by spending cuts or new revenue elsewhere in the budget.
The rule, known as "pay-as-you-go" or "Paygo," was in place during the 1990s, the last time there was a federal budget surplus.
Obama said the abandonment of that "common sense" rule during the Bush administration helped fuel the record deficit the U.S. government is facing today.
"It was this rule that helped lead to balanced budgets in the 1990s, by making clear that we could not increase entitlement spending or cut taxes simply by borrowing more money," Obama said. "And it was the abandonment of this rule that allowed the previous administration and previous congresses to pass massive tax cuts for the wealthy and create an expensive new drug program without paying for any of it."
The rule's restoration comes at a time when the U.S. is facing a record deficit that is on course to keep growing. The administration said earlier this month it expects the deficit to climb to $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year.
Obama has proposed budget cuts and a three-year spending freeze on some government programs, but he has also strongly pushed for a new fiscal commission as well. He expressed disappointment Saturday that the measure faces some opposition.
"Unfortunately this proposal--which received the support of a bipartisan majority in the Senate--was recently blocked," Obama said. "So, I will be creating this commission by executive order."
Meanwhile Saturday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) in the GOP's weekly address on criticized the Obama administration's push to prosecute the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other co-defendants in a Manhattan civilian court.
Graham made his comments just one day after Attorney General Eric Holder told the Washington Post in an interview he may abandon his hopes for a civilian trial amid a political backlash to the plan from both federal lawmakers and local officials in New York, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Washington Post said in the article that Obama may now get involved in trying to find a new spot for a civilian trial, but if political resistance continues, the administration may be forced to switch to a military tribunal.
Graham, who earlier this month introduced a bill to cut off funding for civilian trials in federal courts for the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators , said Saturday that trying terrorists in civilian courts would be affording them too many rights and could actually compromise investigations by U.S. intelligence officials.
"These Al-Qaeda terrorists are not common criminals," Graham said. "Never before have we allowed noncitizen, enemy combatants captured on the battlefield access to our civilian courts providing them with the same constitutional rights as American citizens. Al-Qaeda terrorists should not receive more rights than a Nazi war criminal."
He said that military laws allow the U.S. to collect "valuable intelligence without reading Miranda Rights to enemy combatants" and urged the administration to reinstate the charges against Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators before military commissions.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones Newswires
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