NYC Letter: Team Barry Tackles The Deficit, Part IV

ALMOST INSTANT UPDATE: So much for cuts in spending.

DEMOCRATS ASSAIL OBAMA'S HIT LIST
Lawmakers Vow To Protect Pet Programs

WASHINGTON May 8, 2009 (WaPo) - President Obama's modest proposal to slice $17 billion from 121 government programs quickly ran into a buzz saw of opposition on Capitol Hill yesterday, as an array of Democratic lawmakers vowed to fight White House efforts to deprive their favorite initiatives of federal funds.

Sure enough, the same programs that Mr. Bush tried to cut that Mr. Obama co-opted are fiercely opposed again. Here's the kicker:

Budget Director Peter Orszag briefed Democratic lawmakers on a partial roster of the cuts Wednesday before a public release on Thursday.

So Team Barry must have known going in that the $17B in announced cuts was something far less than advertised. Team Barry thinks you are just that stupid.

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Day 108 of CHOPE

Recently this ad ran in the Washington-area papers' "Help Wanted" pages:

WANTED: FEDERAL BUDGET CUTTER Needed to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from wasteful federal budget. Must be ruthless and unstoppable. Accountant MS in Business Admin a plus. Some experience a plus. Taxes paid up a plus. Excellent benefits. Government pension after 90 days. To apply send resume and salary requirements to: Team Barry - Cutter, P.O. Box 6, K Street, Washington D.C. 2005 Only serious applicants need apply. No drop-bys.

JOB APPLICANTS
Mr. Leatherface (L), Rejected Applicant;
Johnny "Toy-saw" Gupta (R), New Hire
[Photo sources: New Line Cinema; eToys*]

New hire, better results!

OBAMA TOUTS $17 BILLION
'LOT OF MONEY' BUDGET CUTS

$17B! That's a full one half of one percent (.5%) of Mr. Obama's $3.4 trillion budget -- a 167% improvement over Team Barry's earlier .003% cuts.**

WASHINGTON May 7, 2009 (AP) - President Barack Obama sent Congress a detailed budget Thursday boasting of cutting or killing 121 federal programs in a belt-tightening he likened to that of most Americans in difficult times.

... Obama said that Americans are tightening their belts in difficult times and want to know if Washington "is prepared to act with the same sense of responsibility."

Allahpundit scales down Mr. Obama's "belt-tightening":

To put the cuts in perspective, imagine a family that’s already deeply in debt realizing they’re on pace to spend $50,000 this year — and “scaling back” by foregoing one $250 purchase. One half of one percent. That’s what we’re talking about.

Ed Morrisey does the big numbers:

Apparently, we were all wrong. 99.5% of the federal budget is meat, and Obama found all the fat in that $17 billion. Just to remind everyone, $17 billion comprises just 4.25% of the increase in the federal budget under Obama. It amounts to somewhere around 2.2% of Porkulus. Obama just signed an omnibus spending bill that cost $410 billion, against which the cuts are about 4.25% as well. The pork-barrel line items in the omnibus spending plan alone amounted to almost half of what Obama just cut ($7.7 billion). And just to emphasize the point, the $17 billion amounts to 0.85% of 2009’s deficit, and only 1.7% of the lowest deficit projected by the Obama administration in any of the next ten years.

But the $17B is not really $17B. Many of Mr. Obama's cuts are the same program cuts Mr. Bush sought and Congress rebuffed. These are so much padding for Mr. Obama's billion dollar announcement. And even as he cuts, he can't help but spend:

• [Mr. Obama] called for a $3 increase in per-segment air fare taxes starting in 2012, which would raise the maximum fee from $5 to $11 per trip as a way to finance airport security screenings.

• Plowing $2 billion more into merit-based teacher pay to help failing schools turn around. He would spend $370 million on a successor to the Reading First literacy program, a key element of Bush's No Child Left Behind law.

• Increasing child nutrition programs by $1 billion, partly to pay for a 20 percent increase in the number of food inspectors.

• Setting up a $1 billion program to develop or rehabilitate housing for the poor.

• Spending an additional $584 million for pandemic flu efforts, on top of the $1.5 billion in emergency money for 2009 that he asked Congress for in the wake of the swine flu outbreak.

• Obama proposed more money [~$400] for the Labor Department to hire about 1,000 new employees, including 670 new investigators and other staffers to enforce safety, health, minimum wage, overtime and other laws.

• And [the budget] would provide $197 million to find an alternative to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada, another setback to the nuclear power industry from the administration.

Even if Mr. Obama gets every penny of his $17B cuts, that still wouldn't cover the money thrown away on bankrupts GM ($15.4B) and Chrysler ($3B).

CHOPE.

Phony cuts. Phony numbers. More spending.

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* Hat tip to Michelle Malkin. See her Team Barry Budget-Cutting Tools gallery.

** Also see here and here and here.

Posted by Damian at May 8, 2009 09:00 AM