FAKE BUDGET CUTS? “In our age of trillion-dollar budgets and deficits, $100 million is a rounding error at a Department of Agriculture regional office.”
Here is another comparison from Yahoo Finance,
For all the trumpeting, the effort raised questions about why Obama set the bar so low, considering that $100 million amounts to:
--Less than one-quarter of the budget increase that Congress awarded to itself.
--4 percent of the military aid the United States sends to Israel.
--Less than half the cost of one F-22 fighter plane.
--7 percent of the federal subsidy for the money-losing Amtrak passenger rail system.
--1/10,000th of the government's operating budgets for Cabinet agencies, excluding the Iraq and Afghan wars and the stimulus bill.
Basically, this cut will amount to a middle class family dropping two Starbucks lattes a year.
According to Fox news, Obama said,
"$100 million here, $100 million there, pretty soon even in Washington it adds up to real money."
If only President Obama would take those words to heart when he is proposing trillions of dollars in new spending.
I think the point of this wasn't the sum, but the location of the cut. It is a big number when you take into account that it is just for his cabinet.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest complaint about the reaction to the recent financial crisis is that while we are increasing taxes on workers who are earning less every day, government wages have been going up.
Government doesn't ever have to increase its efficiency, it just increases its taxes. When they 'tighten the belt' they usually squeeze the middle and leave the top alone.
If he would be willing to make the same [percentage cut across the board in government we would be getting somewhere. I bet we could cut every budget by 20% without even losing any services. The inefficiency is staggering.