The title of a recently released Yahoo! article is "GOP Predicts Doomsday if Obama Budget Passed". This is not surprising considering that in all of Obama's proposals, only 4 Republicans have supported him (Maine Senators Olympia Snowe & Susan Collins, Maryland Senator Arlen Specter and Texas Rep. Lamar Smith).

So what are these senators saying and what specific objections do they have? First, "according to Yahoo!, "White House Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christna Romer insisted that the nation's flailing economy will be rebounding by 2010". The key words are "insisted" and "flailing".

Specifically, Romer said that "I have every expectation, as do forecasters, that we will bottom out this year and actually be growing again by the end of the year". OK, Ms. Romer, this is your expectation, but what will happen if there is worse to come? Keep in mind that stocks and the broader market are very volatile right now. More specifically, what is your contingency plan?

Obama, in an interview that aired on CBS' "60 minutes", remarked that "I just want to say that the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry". Mr. President, this is true because the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler are supposedly only making $1/year each but we all know that they must be making more money than they are revealing and they already have billions stashed away. The bottom line, as far as the automakers are concerned, however is: the problem must be fixed. Also, were you laughing? This isn't funny because the entire city of Detroit depends on the auto industry for its survival and the auto industry has clearly been an example of recklessness and greed.

Obama continued: "There's got to be a little gallows humor to get you through the day. If you had said to us a year ago that the least of my problems would be Iraq, which is still a pretty serious problem, I don't think (that) anybody would have believed it". The Iraq war has been going well...since 2007, as Sen. McCain said. As far as the economy is concerned, that's a different story, with consecutive months of at least 500000 job losses.

According to New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, "The practical implication of this is bankruptcy of the United States. There's no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals which are in this budget over the 10-year-period that this budget covers, this country will go bankrupt. People will not buy our debt (and) o-ur dollar will become devalued". Notice the strong negative words in this statement: "bankruptcy", "no", "bankrupt", "not" and "devalued". Was Obama serious about picking this man to be his Commerce Secretary? Looking at this statement, there are some pretty substantial differences between Obama and Gregg. If Gregg would have become Commerce Secretary, there would have been a chance for even more partisan gridlock than there is now, with some of it coming from within the Obama administration.

According to Maine Sen. Susan Collins, "It would double the public debt in 5 years (and) triple it in 10 years. That is not sustainable. It poses a threat to the basic health of our economy". Collins is now railing against the budget deficit, which will undoubtedly be huge, a concern that many Republicans have had since the stimulus proposal was debated and passed with only 3 Republicans voting in favor of it and Collins was one of them. So, Ms. Collins, are you being hypocritical? If you have been concerned about the deficit all along, why didn't you say something when the stimulus was passed and you voted for it?

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banmking Committee, denounced Obama's budget as "the road to financial destruction".

In addition, let's analyze the remarks of North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee: "We cannot have (more) debt pile on top of (existing) debt. In the short term, yes, we have got to have added deficits and debt in order to give lift to this economy, but longer term, we have got to pivot". So, now an influential Democrat is acknowledging the debt problem. The big question is: will Obama listen to internal dissent/disagreement? If he doesn't, there will be trouble.

"The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) projected a deficit of $2.3 trillion worse than what the administration projected", but according to Romer, "There is a question of whether (the) CBO is right. So we know that forecasts - both of what the economy is going to do and of what the budget deficits are going to do - are highly uncertain". This is starting like Donald Tsang. Does Obama honestly think that he knows more about economics than government economists?

How confident is Romer about Obama's budget and stimulus plan? "Incredibly confident...We ABSOLUTELY think that they are going to do the job for the American economy". The most compelling/important word in this statement is undoubtedly "absolutely". Ms. Romer, how can you be so (INCREDIBLY) sure that this will work?

Finally, according to Jared Bernstein, Vice-President Biden's economic adviser, "We don't expect these folks to sign on the dotted line. What we do expect and what we are going to stand very firm on because this president (and) this vice-president have made this clear, that there are these priorities that BROUGHT THEM TO THE DANCE HERE: energy reform, health care reform (and) education, all done in the context of a budget that cuts the deficit in half over (the course of) our first term". In order to do that, Obama and his advisers must be less forceful and overcome key opposition from Republicans and increasingly from Democrats.