That’s the portion of president’s $3.4 trillion dollar budget that will be recouped by his efforts to cut wasteful government programs – cuts that are in any case not likely to pass Congress intact:
Obama’s Budget Knife Yields Modest Trims
Plan Likely to Face Tough Fight on the HillPresident Obama has said for weeks that his staff is scouring the federal budget, “line by line,” for savings. Today, they will release the results: a plan to trim 121 programs by $17 billion, a tiny fraction of next year’s $3.4 trillion budget.
The plan is less ambitious than the hit list former president George W. Bush produced last year, targeting 151 programs for $34 billion in savings. And like most of the cuts Bush sought, congressional sources and independent budget analysts yesterday predicted that Obama’s, too, would be a tough sell.
Well, thanks.
As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, “we’re in the very best of hands.”
“Modest” Trims? Ah yes, from a man who, in the classic phrase, “has much to be modest about.”
How can one not love Churchill? What a wit: I think his use of this phrase was directed at Clement Attlee.
I’m still miffed that BHO removed Mr. Churchills bust from the White House. Were I British, would be hard not to be insulted by that action. Heck, as an American I was insulted.
It was indeed about Attlee who was the Socialist party leader and prime minister from 1945-1951. Churchill also said about Attlee that “He is a sheep in sheep’s clothing.”
Boss/
Yeah, had forgotten about the sheep quote. I like it better!
Just note, there’s a difference between .005 and .005%. In this case, he’s cutting .005, which is .5%.
As funny as this is in the ineptness of the effort, a whole 50% of the 17 Billion came out of the Defense Department. But then, one could have predicted that.
BT: Jimmy T sends.
Its actually 9.897 billion per the TRS (Terminations, Reductions and Savings) document (a 107 page PDF file) at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/TRS/
Along with surrendering to the world that we won’t have to surrender the “moral high ground” he is going to dismantle the Military. Death by a thousand cuts.
BT: Jimmy T sends.
Amazing what a difference a few months makes. In the presidential debates, he derided Senator McCain’s fixation on Earmarks because of the minimal proportion of the budget they represent.
“Now, Senator McCain talks a lot about earmarks. That’s one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Earmarks account for 0.5 percent of the total federal budget. There’s no doubt that the system needs reform and there are a lot of screwy things that we end up spending money on, and they need to be eliminated. But it’s not going to solve the problem. “
Even my back bencher, do nothing Democrat congressman was able to siphon off 5 million for street trees and nature walks in the 06′ budget.
The Repubs have a lot of work to do.
I am actually ashamed by the “nature walk”/dog potty strip that our transpoortation dollars bought.
I really don’t think this is going to be enough to make a difference in government spending.
“It’s as if this were the Sahara desert and he came along and took a few pieces of sand off the desert. It literally will have virtually no impact on the deficit and debt as we move forward…” -Sen. Judd Gregg
Obama did pledge to cut deficits in half to $533 billion by the end of his term- which is bigger than anything Bush ever forecasted. (Fox News)
This video i found today basically shows what different news sources are saying about the budget cuts. Definitely worth a look:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/budget_cuts_a_drop_in_the_bucket/
it was enough to kill the F-22.
Half came from defense. The other half came from the Department of Labor that investigates “Union Corruption”.
Funny that…
ChrisP