A Country Gone Crazy... Is $17 Bill in Budget Cuts a Lot or a Little?

Our World News report:

-- jpt - May 08, 2009 6:40 AM

Source:  ABC News/Glenn Beck

A Country Gone Crazy... An Administration Out of Control

• $17 Billion in Budget Cuts Is Now, That The Debt And Budgets Have Doubled And Tripled, A Substantial Amount to Save, Says Obama. During The Campaign When McCain Said He Would Cut Earmarks by $18 Billion, Obama Said It Was a Drop In The Bucket.
• With All The Violence at the Border, The Warning Of The Swine Flu Epidemic Possibilities, On-Going Terrorist Threats, And The Flo of Drugs And Guns Across The Border, Funds for Border Security Have Been Cut From Budget
• Border Fence Not To Be Built Even Though Money Has Been Allotted???
• Funds For Families Of Fallen Policemen Cut
• Tax Cheat Tim Geithner Going to Head-up Task Force To Aggressively Collect Taxes
• Peek At New Health Plan - People Will Pay Co-Pay For Their Employer Supplied Healthcare (An Employment Benefit) And Then "Taxed" on Their Benefits to Pay For Those Who Can't Afford Healthcare
• Evidence, From Homeland Security, Shows That Nancy Pelosi Knew About EIT, But “They” Want To Prosecute People From The Last Administration Like A Banana Republic.  
• Hmmm… What Happened To Obama’s Promise Of Tax Cuts And No New Taxes… Cap and Trade, Healthcare Coverage Tax, Higher Taxes On The Wealthy Who Create Jobs In The United States
• Billions In Bailouts To Save The Car Companies And Now Chrysler Will Essentially Be An Italian Company After Filing For Bankruptcy… After Getting the Bailout Money and Today It Was Announce That GM Will Be Creating More Jobs And Making More Cars… In Mexico And China
• Former Employees Of ACORN (Part Of The Board Of Directors) Are Coming Forward And Admitting To Voter Fraud and Internal Fraud.  Say ACORN Is Getting Federal And Bailout Money Through Sub-Companies.
• Leaders of Freddie And Fannie Were At ACORN Offices During Their Bailout Period.
• Security At Our Nation's Ports Is One Of the Proposed Budget Cuts.
• Bloggers Are Being Threatened With Legislation For Jail Time To Silence Them.
• Conservative TV and Radio Are Being Threatened And Targeted By The Powers That Be.
• And The List Goes On… And On... And On

Everyone Needs To Wake Up, Pay Attention, Read... Even If You Are Not A Reader, Listen To A Spectrum and Variety of New Coverage, And Take Part In The Process.  We Need To Insist On The Transparency That We Were Promised During Obama's Campaign.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama, with Peter R. Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Rob Nabors, his deputy, unveiled nearly $17 billion in additional budget cuts for the coming fiscal year.

By JACKIE CALMES

Published: May 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday unveiled nearly $17 billion in additional budget cuts for the coming fiscal year to underscore what he called an “ongoing” effort to find savings at a time when the government’s costs for bailouts, health care and wars are mounting far faster.

“We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits do not matter and waste is not our problem,” said Mr. Obama, who was joined at the White House by Peter R. Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Rob Nabors, his deputy. “We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration — or the next generation.”

The savings for the budget year starting Oct. 1 represent the sum of Mr. Obama’s promised “line by line” scrubbing of the federal budget, and the the proposed cuts amount to about 1.4 percent of the $1.2 trillion deficit that is projected for the fiscal year 2010.

Administration advisers called the cuts just a beginning, but some Republicans said they were less than impressed.

“While we appreciate the newfound attention to saving taxpayer dollars from this administration, we respectfully suggested that we should do far more," said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.

The president’s 10-year budget outline, released in February, shows the deficit declining by his final year in office to $533 billion, mostly through assumptions about economic growth when the recession ends and which many economists consider somewhat optimistic.

The $17 billion would be saved by ending or reducing 121 federal programs.

Mr. Obama listed some of them: a long-range radio navigation system that costs $35 million but has been rendered obsolete by global positioning systems; a literacy program that spends half its financing on overhead, and will be absorbed by other Education Department efforts; and the position of education attaché to UNESCO, based in the United States Embassy in Paris.

“Participation in UNESCO is very important,” Mr. Obama said, “but we can save this money and still participate using e-mail, teleconferencing, and a small travel budget.”

The the 131-page budget document released Thursday showed spending in 2008 of $77,000 to rent living quarters for the attaché, and $21,000 for travel expenses, and the president noted that eliminating the position would save $632,000 a year.

An additional $142 million would be saved by ending a program to clean up abandoned mines. But eliminating the financing illustrates the difficulties the administration could face in Congress, where, as administration officials acknowledged, every program has its patrons. When Mr. Obama proposed cuts in the program as part of his budget outline, Western state lawmakers objected.

“None of this will be easy,” he said.

That is certainly true for about half of the savings that administration officials say will come from military programs. The savings proposals, outlined last month by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as part of a comprehensive reordering of military spending priorities, drew howls of protest from supporters in Congress and the arms industry.

Among Mr. Gates’s targets are missile defense programs, the Army’s costly Future Combat Systems, Navy shipbuilding, the advanced F-22 fighter jets and a state-of-the-art helicopter fleet for the president.

“This is a product of going through the budget line-by-line,” as Mr. Obama has promised since his presidential campaign, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said. “It’s a constant, cumulative effort on this front to find savings and find reductions.”

While the $17 billion in projected savings represents a small portion of the proposed budget, Mr. Obama insisted that “that’s a lot of money, even by Washington standards.” It was enough to pay for a $2,500 tuition tax credit for millions of students, for larger Pell education grants, he said, “with enough money left over to pay for everything we do to protect the National Parks.”

“For every dollar we seek to save there will be those who have an interest in seeing it spent,” the president said. “That’s how unnecessary programs survive year after year. That’s how budgets swell.”

But, he added, “We cannot accept business as usual.”

Brian Knowlton contributed reporting

There are objections and criticisms coming from "both sides of the aisle" on the proposed 2010 budget cuts. The White House released details of President Obama’s proposed budget for the 2010 fiscal year today. For anyone who would like to read it, the whole deal is online here; Here’s the proposed budget for Health and Human Services.

The WSJ is reporting that the budget includes a $300 million funding boost for the FDA, (this is not a good thing) the largest in the agency’s history.

"Time to take the 'red pill' so you can see past the Matrix, America!!"

American Progressivism