On the home page of the Office of Management and Budget Web site (whitehouse.gov/omb), President Obama is quoted: “Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new.” If only he would, but the president’s proposed $3.7 trillion budget is more of the same: taxing and spending for which liberal Democrats are known and “cuts” as in Pell Grants and home heating assistance for the poor he knows congressional Democrats are unlikely to approve. It is also full of assumptions about revenue and a rosy scenario on economic growth that is more than double current growth.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of a Republican Study Committee made up of economic and socially conservative members, told me over breakfast Tuesday, “the $1.1 trillion savings claim made by the president over 10 years is nothing. This year’s deficit is $1.5 trillion.”