Posted on 05/06/2009 10:25:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
President Barack Obama plans to unveil today a fiscal 2010 budget full of details on his plans to save as much as $17 billion by cutting — and in some cases ending — 121 government programs.
The goal, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, is "identifying and ending programs that are unneeded and don't work."
About half the savings would come from nondefense programs, and the rest from de-fense. Major cuts would include ending the Even Start program, which promotes family literacy, as well as a mine cleanup effort and the Education Department's Paris attache.
The full list will be revealed today. It's expected to include about 40 previously announced cuts, including the Pentagon's bid to end production of the F-22 fighter jet program. It also will list an effort to eliminate the Resource Conservation and Development Program, which has provided community leadership training since 1962.
"After 47 years," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement, "this goal has been accomplished."
The proposals will be included in a new White House book of terminations, reductions and savings, as well as a separate "appendix" detailing line by line spending. Next week, the administration expects to release a volume of "analytical perspectives" explaining its decisions more fully, as well as new tables outlining its projections for spending, taxes and deficits.
Obama first submitted a $3.55 trillion fiscal 2010 budget outline in February, offering his general priorities and overall spending and tax plans. Congress last week adopted his plan with some spending cuts of its own, but with few major changes. Its $3.4 trillion budget would reduce this year's anticipated $1.7 trillion deficit to $620 billion by fiscal 2012. The president faces a bumpy road ahead at the Capitol before his plan can be implemented, because many of the programs he wants to cut or eliminate have staunch defenders. Even Start, for instance, was a Bush administration target, but strong support in the House of Representatives kept it funded.
"It may make sense to go line by line," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., "but it's a painful and difficult process."
The chief criteria for any budget item, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, will be: "Does it affect employment or not?"
Obama's plan also could come under fire for not being bold enough. The $17 billion in savings is a tiny amount for such a big budget; House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said, "We should do far more." Last year, former President George W. Bush proposed ending or cutting 151 programs and saving $18 billion.
A dozen different subcommittees in each house of Congress already have begun to consider various budget sections, and those panels are usually packed with people who are advocates for spending included in those bills.
Harkin, for instance, heads a subcommittee that considers spending in the labor, health, human services and education areas, and he's a strong advocate for such programs. He didn't want to comment specifically on any of Obama's proposed cuts and couldn't immediately think of any program that deserved to be terminated.
Congressional leaders insist that they'll fight to get spending down. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent a letter to committee chairmen giving them until June 2 to "develop a specific list of initiatives aimed at reducing costs, ending duplication and promoting efficiency in order to cut the costs of government as aggressively as possible."
17 billion is a joke; and I think we’re the butt of it.
He could get that 4 billion back from ACORN but they are his thugs and his and the Demorats plan for stealing every election going forward as well as working his fascist take over of our country. I hope that I am wrong. That money should NEVER have gone to this criminal leftist group. I am still livid.
All they’re going to do is blame the former adminstration. Just watch and see.
ping
I saw the top of the list...
1) Army
2) Navy
3) Air Force
4) Marines
Y'know, Robert... Next to $3.5 Trillion, it doesn't look like so much. And, besides, the $17 Billion is a mirage. You can bet, dollars to donuts, that except for the real F-22 cuts, everything else will be preserved, somehow.
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