Obama suddenly a fiscal conservative?

[Hansmeister]

At His First Official Cabinet Meeting, Obama Orders Cuts
Search for Savings of $100 Million Derided by GOP as Drop in the Bucket

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 21, 2009



The brickbats were flying even before President Obama convened his first official Cabinet meeting yesterday. At the session, Obama ordered his agency heads to identify and shave a collective $100 million in administrative costs from federal programs in a budget of well over $3 trillion.

"At the same time they're looking for millions in savings, the president's budget calls for adding trillions to the debt," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "The nation's debt is at its highest level ever, but under the administration's budget, the amount of public debt will double in five years and triple in 10."

Framed by members of his Cabinet, the president himself acknowledged that the goal amounts to a drop in the bucket. "It is, and that's what I just said," he told reporters. "None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we are 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."

In a frenetic first three months in office, Obama has seen his $787 billion economic stimulus plan enacted and the outlines of his $3.5 trillion budget passed, while overseeing hundreds of billions of dollars in outlays to stabilize the nation's teetering financial system and its imploding housing market.

But that may prove to be the easy part.

With Congress back from its spring recess and many of the big, expensive pieces of Obama's plan for turning the economy around now in place, the president is pivoting to the nitty-gritty details of implementing his plans to expand health care, encourage production of renewable energy and improve education -- all while demonstrating he is serious about cutting the federal deficit.

With that in mind, Obama called his first official meeting of the Cabinet, which for modern presidents serves as less a policymaking session than a forum for conveying presidential authority. This is particularly true for Obama, whose White House has multiple policymaking "czars" coordinating activities on issues from climate change to health care.

During his years in office, President George W. Bush was known for seeding his Cabinet with people who were personally close to him, while running policy mostly through the White House, leaving agencies as purveyors of those ideas. Obama, meanwhile, has assembled a governing team notable for its independence and star power, but until yesterday he had never met with its members officially as a group.

"The Cabinet is for pictures and stories and publicity," said Bradley H. Patterson Jr., who has worked for three administrations and has written several books on the inner workings of the White House.

Yesterday was such an occasion. Surrounded by the top administration officials, Obama said his team is aware of the need to cut spending over the long haul. "One of the things that everybody here is mindful of as we move forward, dealing with this extraordinary economic crisis, we also have a deficit, a confidence gap, when it comes to the American people," Obama said. "And we've got to earn their trust. They've got to feel confident that their dollars are being spent wisely."

As a start, the president set the $100 million goal for cutting administrative costs across the government. The White House said that process already has yielded some savings: The Department of Veterans Affairs canceled or delayed 26 conferences. The Education Department is no longer allowing employees to have both laptop and desktop computers. The Agriculture Department is terminating leases and doing more to verify the income of recipients of farm subsidies. And the Department of Homeland Security is going to start buying its office supplies in bulk.

The relatively small savings from those measures have drawn ridicule from Obama's conservative critics, many of whom have been critical of his spending plans.

"To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall," Harvard University economist N. Greg Mankiw, a Bush administration official, wrote on his blog. "How much would he or she announce that spending [be] cut? By $3 over the course of the year -- approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year."

Meanwhile, the administration is learning that those small savings will come easier than the larger ones officials are eyeing. Administration plans to have the government directly administer all federal students loans, cutting out banks and saving $94 billion over the next decade, have run into bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's blueprint to shift billions in defense spending has also met with a mixed reaction from lawmakers. Obama's proposal to end automatic subsidy payments for big farmers and capping subsidy payments at $250,000 has been derided by some farm state lawmakers.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee will hold the first of three roundtable discussions on improving health-care services and improving efficiency, another step in Democratic leaders' plans to pass a health-care reform bill by the summer. In the near future, the House committees will begin work on cap-and-trade proposals to reduce carbon emissions. And Congress will also be working to fill in details of Obama's budget outline.

All of this will come against a backdrop of opposition from Republicans, who accuse the president of spending too freely -- a perception Obama hopes to dash.

"None of these savings by themselves are going to solve our long-term fiscal problem," Obama said. "But taken together they can make a difference, and they send a signal that we are serious about changing how government operates."

We will pay $100 million each day just on interest on the money we borrowed for the stimulus package.  What a fucking joke!

Why did it take 100 days for Obama to have his first cabinet meeting?

[alfred russel]

You have to admit this administration is a lot smarter than Bush at this PR thing: tragically there are probably a lot of Americans that don't understand $100 million is a lot smaller than $3 trillion.

[garbon]

You have to admit this administration is a lot smarter than Bush at this PR thing: tragically there are probably a lot of Americans that don't understand $100 million is a lot smaller than $3 trillion.

True..although that makes it easier to hate him more.  He plays well the token gesture which distract people from business as usual (or worse).

But yeah, I was dying laughing when I saw this earlier.

[Berkut]

Wow, that is even smaller than the $165 million that got the masses crying for blood with AIG.

[Caliga]

We will pay $100 million each day just on interest on the money we borrowed for the stimulus package.  What a fucking joke!

Why did it take 100 days for Obama to have his first cabinet meeting?

He's still busy campaigning. 

[saskganesh]

how easy do you think it would be to make cuts in the military budget?

[Valmy]

*shrug*

Better than spending an extra 100 million.

[Valmy]

True..although that makes it easier to hate him more.  He plays well the token gesture which distract people from business as usual (or worse).

But yeah, I was dying laughing when I saw this earlier.

Wow I am shocked and amazed.

[Grey Fox]

Boo! Spend more! Raise Taxes!

[DontSayBanana]

* DontSayBanana starts getting annoyed

It's incredibly easy to say "he's not saving enough money," but I'm going to clue you fucktards in on something. Running an effective government costs money. You're the same bitches who would whine incessantly about a lame, ineffectual government if we went through and gutted the federal budget the way you guys want. You want accountability for TARP, well Barofsky and his special investigators need food on the table. You want better international relations? Every diplomatic function of the State Department requires money. By the way, that "we'll pay $100M a day" thing is a cop-out, too... as of 2007, there are 138M taxpayers in the US. What's the matter, Hans? So broke from building your dream house that you can't afford less than a dollar a day to avoid an economy tanking?

EDIT: Heh. I'm somewhat less annoyed now; didn't realize SMF parses IRC commands.

[garbon]

Way to miss the point Carrot.

[The Minsky Moment]

Way to miss the point Carrot.

What exactly was the point?

[Valmy]

What exactly was the point?

Once you stimulate the economy you are forbidden to try to cut costs anywhere else or you are worthy of contempt and laughter.

[garbon]

Once you stimulate the economy you are forbidden to try to cut costs anywhere else or you are worthy of contempt and laughter.

Yeah you authorize billions in new spending (with no real knowledge that it'll help) and then cut a token amount of $100 million, people will laugh.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_090421.htm

Obama Cabinet Spending Cuts Ridiculed

Yesterday, President Obama ordered his cabinet to identify $100 million in budget cuts. The CBS Evening News reported that "critics say the amounts are so small," that "it's nothing more than a publicity stunt." CBS added that the President "admitted $100 million is a drop in the budget bucket, but insisted there's a lot more cutting to come." The New York Times says "budget analysts promptly burst out laughing. A reporter declared at the White House briefing that the initiative would become fodder for late-night talk show hosts," and "the Republican Study Committee, a group of fiscal conservatives, put out a news release with the headline 'Obama's 0.0025% spending cut.'" The Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell, appearing on CNBC's The Kudlow Report, said, "I almost thought it was April Fool's Day. Talk about a kick in the teeth for taxpayers. ... And, oh by the way, these wouldn't be spending cuts the way you and I understand it. These would be reductions in the planned increases that are already built into the government budgeting baseline. This was a spit in the face to hard-working American taxpayers." Former labor secretary Robert Reich agreed that "this is pretty small potatoes. I mean, it's the beginning. It's at least a gesture, an important gesture. ... Yes, Obama needs to do more."

The Wall Street Journal reports "Obama has left himself open to the charge of overspending as he focuses on jump-starting the stalled economy with the huge stimulus bill and shoring up its foundations with big overhauls of health care, energy and education." And "anticipating the charge, the administration sought to build savings into its budget plans. But results so far have been modest." The AP says the Obama move "set off outbursts of mental math and scribbled calculations as political friend and foe tried to figure out its impact." Adds the AP, "The bottom line: Not much." The Washington Post, however, reports that in addition to the $100 million, "many other planned reductions are already underway -- and with total savings of far more than $100 million." David Brooks, in his New York Times column, says that "Obama imposes hard choices on others, but has postponed his own. He presented an agenda that bleeds red ink a trillion dollars at a time. Now he seems passive as Congress kills his few revenue ideas (cap and trade) and spending cuts (agricultural subsidies)," and "huge fiscal gaps are opening this decade that can't be closed by distant entitlement reform."

[The Minsky Moment]

So "critics" are *gasp* criticizing.

Hold the presses everyone, we've got a roll out a special edition on this one.