I would hazard a guess that the Federal government wastes $17billion on paper products alone. Copy paper, publications, etc.

Whatever happened to that axe BO was supposed to take to the budget? Looks more like a pen knife to me!

His spending will continue to be aimed solidifying the Democratic majority. Defense, oil and gas research, nuclear, coal. He’s playing El Duche with the energy indusry. He doesn’t need to nationalize anything. He is using government to pick winners and losers in the energy insdustry.

breitbart.com reports…
“I’m going to come back and say, under any set of assumptions, finding the 17 billion dollars a year, I don’t think, is a side show,” White House budget chief Peter Orszag said on MSNBC.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, told FOX News that he’s not impressed by Obama’s $17 billion proposed cut.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/06/white-house-official-obama-cut-programs-save-b-budget/

“It’s as if you took a teaspoon of water out of the bathtub while you left the spicket on at full speed,” he said, referring to Obama’s $3.4 trillion budget.

“Basically right now we’re running up a debt that is so high as a percentage of our gross national product that we couldn’t even get into the European union,” he said. “I mean we’re headed to third-world country status if we keep this up.”

Obama has said repeatedly his administration will go through the budget “line by line” to eliminate waste. But the resulting savings are relatively minor compared with the government’s fiscal woes, especially a deficit that’s likely to exceed $1.5 trillion this year.

Republicans weren’t impressed with the cuts.

“While we appreciate the newfound attention to saving taxpayer dollars from this administration, we respectfully suggested that we should do far more,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

Too much saving….

… the language isn’t clear. Does that mean the tax cuts are going to the oil and gas companies as part of the budget cuts, or does that mean the tax cuts for those industries are some of the “programs” being sliced?

I’d have a hard time believing the former, but don’t know how a tax cut could be considered a program that could be cut to trim fat off spending.

But then, the ways of this Administration don’t generally make sense to me anyhow.

this should give us a down payment on the $1T high speed rail system’s he’s planning on building. It’s so refreshing to hear a politician explain how he’s going to pay for his programs.

That’s the headline of this Onion-style parody of Obama’s miniscule budget cuts:

http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/04/scientists-discover-president-obamas.html

About half of the trims would come from curbing defense programs that have been identified by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as expendable. They include ending production of the F-22 fighter plane and canceling a new presidential helicopter fleet.
…The proposed cuts, if adopted by Congress, would not actually reduce government spending. Obama’s budget would increase overall spending; any savings from the program terminations and reductions would be shifted to the president’s priorities.

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/

According to this speech from February, it’s the “inherited deficit” he intends to cut in half by the end of his first term; not the deficit he’s creating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jJvkkNmR_8&feature=fvsr

At mark 1:30

I don’t recall ever seeing a “white house budget estimate” as separate from the CBO before this year. Has this actually happened in the past, or is this the first time that the white house is releasing separate budget estimates from the CBO?

and we’ll be back at the deficit level when Bush left office (not including interest). Why do we always forget that pesky interest?

“If a family with an income of $50,000 ran its finances like the federal government, that family would be adding $6,350 in debt in 2010. The budget cuts? $61.”

http://publius772000.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/obama-tightens-the-nations-belt-by-0-5/