Yesterday, we were promised that Barack Obama would be discussing planned budget cuts today:
Obama’s staff won’t elaborate, but the President-Elect said just now that he’d roll out a plan to cut the federal budget tomorrow — something both presidential candidates said they’d do, but neither detailed.
“[T]o make the investments we need, we’ll have to scour our federal budget, line-by-line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices as well – something I’ll be discussing further tomorrow,” Obama said.
He said later that he’d be rolling out “some reforms in Washington” tomorrow.
Well, he held the press conference at noon and it was far less than the Monday talking points made it out to be:
(CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama pledged Tuesday to go through the federal budget “page by page, line by line” to eliminate excessive spending and get the economy back on track.
“If we are going to make the investments we need, we also have to be willing to shed the spending that we don’t need,” Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
“In these challenging times, when we’re facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It’s a necessity,” he said.
Obama also said that he has selected Peter Orszag as his nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, is an expert on health care, pensions and Social Security policy. He worked at the Clinton White House as special assistant to the president at the National Economic Council and served on the Council of Economic Advisers.
The move comes a day after the president-elect announced key members of his economic team, including New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as his choice for treasury secretary and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as his selection for chief of the National Economic Council.
But there was no significant discussion of budget cuts, and when pressed to name something, Obama’s response was incredibly weak:
In a speech just concluded announcing two more economy appointees — CBO chief Peter Orszag to the Office of Management and Budget and Robert Nabors (House Approp. Comm.) to be his deputy — President-elect Obama gave an example of one piece of wasteful government spending: farm subsidies.
Obama cited a GAO report out yesterday that said from 2003 to 2006, “millionaire farmers” got $49 million in farm subsidies despite earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff in annual income.
“If it’s true,” Obama said, “it’s a prime example of waste.”
That’s right, $ 49 million in a budget of over $ 2 trillion. Not even a drop in the bucket.
As I noted in a comment at Donklephant yesterday, there’s really only one way to go about this if Obama’s serious:
[U]nless his budget cuts go after entitlement spending, where the real money is, it will all be window dressing.
Thanks largely to the bailout and the declining economy, current projections are that the budget deficit is likely to be near or even above $ 1 trillion next year. Nobody seems to be talking about this, or to understand just what it means that the the deficit will be equal to nearly 50% of the total budget itself. For one thing, it means that Obama’s stimulus plan is likely to be a lot smaller than advertised, unless he wants to spend us even further into debt.
I’ll be interested to see what he comes up with tomorrow, but cutting out this year’s version of the Bridge to Nowhere isn’t going to amount to anything
The original Bridge To Nowwhere earmark amounted to $ 233 million, Obama’s single example of farm subsidies to “rich” farmers is about 1/6 that amount.
As a first step, this is not an encouraging sign for those who still believe in fiscal sanity.
Farms subsidies are as good a place to start as anywhere. Not only does it lower debt but in theory it should press people to grow more food resources therefore lowering the cost of our food goods. Hopefully Obama isn’t mentioning this as his first priority in an effort to further his ethanol program. I’ll take lower food prices over lower gas prices any day of the week.
As to the bigger spending, I’d start with the military. Too many costs are just lining pockets.
I can think of a bunch of ways for him to significantly cut spending. That missile program that has been a total failure would be a great place to start. A reorganization of the military getting contractors less involved should also be at the top of the list.
Whatever he does decide to do, I hope it is more thought out then this current administration
Except Obama didn’t say anything about eliminating farm subsidies — which we ought to do anyway, by the way — he instead talked about eliminating $ 49 million in subsidies for “rich” farmers.
That’s just a new version of the same campaigns against “pork” that never deal with the real source of the problem.
The Navy is seeking to place an Outlying Landing Field (OLF) in Camden County that will remove up to 53,000 acres of valuable, productive farmland from the county’s tax rolls.
Please keep in mind that the OLF will not create any jobs for our community and will not be of economic benefit to our area. We have discovered that the current OLF at Fentress Field in Chesapeake, Virginia, employs only 38 military personnel (Section 3.5.1.1 of the 2003 FEIS) and has attracted virtually no economic development.
The additional OLF in Camden County is to serve the Master Jet Base at Oceana Naval Air Station located approximately 30 miles over the state line in Virginia Beach, VA. The Master Jet Base already has four runways that the Navy is not using to their full capability because Virginia Beach residents have sued the Navy in the past and are currently suing the Navy over property and noise damage *yet their community receives over $1 billion a year from the base’s squadrons.* This is simply an exportation of noise from a wealthier locality to a relatively poor and rural area.
Here is our proof that the Navy and the City of Virginia Beach have entered into an agreement that restricts the use of the Navy’s existing runways at Oceana Naval Air Station for Field Carrier Landing Practices (FCLP). FCLPs are simply touch and go landing operations that occur primarily at night whereby Navy jet aircraft simulate landing and taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. http://www.vbgov.com/file_source/dept/planning/Document/JLUS_Ch4.pdf
We formed our group, Concerned Citizens Against the OLF in Camden, Inc., approximately one year ago to stop the unfair burden of an OLF from falling on northeastern North Carolina due to decades of uncontrolled development around the Master Jet Base in Virginia Beach. We have the support of our local commissioners in both Camden and Currituck Counties. We also have the support of our federal and state representatives.
We are a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the cultural heritage, the environment, and the economic vitality of Northeastern North Carolina.
It is important to remember, the Navy already has 4 high performance runways they are not using, why spend hundreds of millions of dollars on something they don’t need?
Your support is greatly appreciated. WE NEED YOUR HELP.
Please visit our website at http://www.noolfcurrituck.org
Concerned Citzens Against OLF in Camden, Inc
Hey! Somebody stole my name…I would have a rebuttal for the loser who stole my identity, but you pretty much covered it Doug. From now on I will call myself Matt the Great.