Pawlenty, Cain say they’d sign deficit budget

But only one of them, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, promised to veto a deficit budget if it came across his desk his first year in office. The others conceded a balanced budget is likely still several years off.

Indeed, in the rest of the 2012 presidential-nomination field, all the candidates are calling to curb spending, but almost none of them have put forth a plan to balance the budget in the next few years.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty told a crowd of around 500 in Des Moines he supports a Constitutional requirement to balance the budget every year, but after the event, he said he’d probably sign a deficit budget his first year as president.