President Spins $100 Million in Cuts to Gain More for Wish List
The Spin-a-rific President has done it again. The media is lapping up the shiny $100 million in cuts that President Barack Obama announced with pomp.
Obama held his first Cabinet meeting Monday and addressed the subject most Americans are getting expert at: cutting back, cutting spending. After his speech, Obama answered a question. “A hundred million dollars, isn’t that a drop in the bucket, sir?” The White House’s own blog, continued.
President Cuts $100 million to help fund his priorities
Pres. Obama: “It is, and that’s what I just said. None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively they would make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we’re going to do is line by line, page by page, $100 million there, $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.” – snip -
In the upcoming weeks, Obama stated that he is going to expect Cabinet members to identify places to cut in their administrative budgets. Not only that, but Obama also said that he “expects” to cut 100 “current” programs in the federal budget to “free up” money to put in much more important areas such as health care, education, energy, and “foreign policy apparatus.” Huh? And uh huh.
I’m not seeing things as clearly as Obama. He expects cutting several $100 million (and I’m being generous with that number) will free up money to pay for his wish list? Wonder what programs he’s cutting.
And wonder what Americans think of Obama’s spin on spending. The FY2010 budget is $3.55 trillion.
Lest we forget the little things, let’s remind ourselves exactly what $1 trillion is….it’s one MILLION millions. I know, it boggled my mind too. So these little cuts Obama is making? Even if you add them up, at his request, they won’t come close to touching what he’s spending. That’s our taxpayer money, stimu-less.
Got tea?
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Photo Source: Wikimedia
Does anyone actually believe that Cabinet members would voluntarily cut their own budgets in a meaningful way? Fortunately (in their own minds), they were not asked to do that. Rather they can cut some window dressing stuff, probably from the Bush era, because anything from that admin is “bad,” then claim victory and move on. If they were ever asked to cut meaningfully, each Cabinet head would point to the next guy and say, “I need everything here. Why don’t we cut your budget.” It’s in their nature.
I can’t wait till the congressional battles launch to fight over their district’s portion of each $100 million dollars. I think Obama may have made a mistake by messing with the budget without a clear reason why.
We’ve already seen the opening salvos: See Robert Gates’ address regarding the F-22 Raptor program and the “Laser Plane.” In other words, the crap that was designed to fight the Soviets. One of the key themes of Obama’s administration will be to dismantle the vestiges of the Cold War that continue to be so damaging to the US, such as the Mudjahideed we left to their own devices after the USSR collapsed.
That’s where he’ll end up getting the best bang for our buck.