Who sounds like the better Republican nominee?

Here are the comments of three Republican hopefuls in response to Obama’s budget speech.  Two sets of comments appear to be superficial, and one set of comments demonstrates a more through understanding of the problem.  Or you could say one set of comments is overly wordy, and the other two are succinct..

You make the call…

Romney, Cain, and Pawlenty on Obama’s Budget Speech

Mitt Romney – Romney called Obama’s speech, “too little, too late.” He said:

Instead of supporting spending cuts that lead to real deficit reduction and true reform of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, the President dug deep into his liberal playbook for ‘solutions’ highlighted by higher taxes…With over 20 million people who are unemployed or who have stopped looking for work, the last thing we should be doing is raising taxes on job-creators, entrepreneurs, and small business owners across America.

Herman Cain – Cain released the following statement on Obama’s speech:

President Obama’s address proved yet again that he values ideology over basic economics and leadership.

His budget employs his typical class warfare tactics, insisting on taxing America’s job creators into oblivion for what he deems “fairness.” In doing so, he makes clear his willingness to further cripple our economy in exchange for pushing his wealth redistribution agenda and abandonment of the free enterprise system.

President Obama also took the opportunity to blame everyone but his own administration for this economic disaster, shifting blame to the Bush administration, Congressional Republicans and America’s highest earners, neglecting his own administration’s reckless spending.

Instead of using this speech as an opportunity to preview a budget that could significantly pay down our mounting debt through meaningful spending cuts and entitlement reforms, he again insisted on saddling America’s job creators with an even heavier tax burden to pay down the debt. Meanwhile, Congressman Ryan proposed his own budget that reduces the national debt by $6 trillion without raising taxes on a single American family or business.

Most importantly, actions speak louder than words. President Obama claims that his budget proposal would cut $4 trillion in just 12 years. Can we really trust a man who vowed time and time again that his administration would cut the budget deficit in half, but instead, brought our budget deficits to record levels in just half a term in the White House?

Indeed, since President Obama just filed his re-election candidacy papers, Americans today got their first televised campaign speech for 2012: all talk, no leadership

Tim Pawlenty – Pawlenty referred to Obama’s speech as “window dressing.” He said:

Today’s speech was nothing more than window dressing…President Obama’s lack of seriousness on deficit reduction is crystal clear when you look at the budget deal he insisted on to avoid a government shutdown.

The more we learn about the budget deal the worse it looks. When you consider that the federal deficit in February alone was over $222 billion, to have actual cuts less than the $38 billion originally advertised is just not serious…The fact that billions of dollars advertised as cuts were not scheduled to be spent in any case makes this budget wholly unacceptable. It’s no surprise that President Obama and Senator Reid forced this budget, but it should be rejected. America deserves better.

From Race 4 2012.