Obama moves to cut $17 billion from budget

[Americanhero1]

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama challenged Congress on Thursday to approve $17 billion in additional spending cuts in the coming budget year, a sum that amounts to less than one-half of one percent of the total federal budget. Obama acknowledged "none of this will be easy" amid the continuing, deep economic slump.

Announcing 121 proposed program eliminations and curtailments, Obama said that Americans are tightening their belts in these difficult times and want to know if Washington "is prepared to act with the same sense of responsibility."

Republicans immediately denounced his proposed budget cuts as too modest. "The resulting savings are relatively minor compared with the government's fiscal woes," said House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Answering criticism that his cuts were but a drop in a $3.4 trillion spending bucket, Obama said: "Some of the cuts we're putting forward today are more painful than others. Some are larger than others. In fact a few of the programs we eliminate will produce less than a million dollars in savings. Outside of Washington, that's still a lot of money."

The spending cuts were detailed in a 2 1/2 inch thick supplement to the broad 2010 budget outline that the president proposed in February.

Going before the cameras at the White House, Obama said, "These savings, large and small, add up."

He said he's entrusting budget director Peter Orszag to follow through with the cuts. But there already have been indications that he'll meet some resistance in Congress.

"For every dollar we seek to save," he conceded, "there will be those who have an interest in seeing it spent. That's how unnecessary programs survive year after year."

"But at this moment — at this difficult time for our nation — we cannot accept business as usual," Obama added. "We cannot accept anything less than a government ready to meet the challenges of our time."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090507/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_budget

[briann]

Wow!!!!  17 billion off of his 3.4 Trillion of pork....   That makes me feel better...

[ag337]

Wow!!!!  17 billion off of his 3.4 Trillion of pork....   That makes me feel better...

   

briann,
You are right.
It's just a tiny drop out of a huge bucket.

[arksis]

And his own people are telling him he cannot cut what he's cutting!  I hope they fight amongst themselves!

[drlmg]

Wow, we are going to be out of debt before you know it at that rate! If my calculations are correct, 17 billion in cuts is 0.05% of the 3.4 trillion in new spending. This coupled with printing money out of thin air with nothing to back it and raising taxes through the roof will surely have us out of this "economic downturn" in no time. Even though the economy has gotten much worse, it is no longer a "worse economy since the great depression" thanks to the magic of obama and crew. I wonder how long it will be before they try and say we are really not paying more taxes since the dollar isn't worth as much now? Taxes adjusted for inflation, necessary since Bush and Cheney ruined the economy... It would not surprise me!!

0.05% = 5 parts per 10,000... so $5 for every $10,000 in new spending - 2000 times more new spending than cuts.

obama and regime is re-defining things so I wonder what the numbers really are? Traditionally democrats will say they cut taxes if they didn't raise them to the level expected, example.... if last year's bill said that taxes for buying condoms for pre-schoolers could be raised by 50% what it was last year (eg. 30 billion) and they raised it from 30 to 45 billion then they would claim the 15 billion increase was actually a 5 billion decrease. If projected that to keep providing abortions for people in Kenya at the same rate as last year woud cost 5 billion more this year but they didn't increase spending for it... that would be a 5 billion cut!