Obama orders Cabinet to cut spending by $100M
April 20th, 2009 . by TexasFredObama orders Cabinet to cut spending by $100M
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Monday ordered his Cabinet to find ways to slice spending by $100 million, but acknowledged it’s a “drop in the bucket” and said there’s a “confidence gap” that he needs to overcome. Just back from a Latin America summit, Obama told the first formal Cabinet meeting of his administration that vast spending to combat the economic crisis was “the right thing to do.” But he also said taxpayers still need to know that every dollar they give the government is being spent wisely.
“We also have a deficit - a confidence gap - when it comes to the American people,” he told reporters. “And we’ve got to earn their trust.”
Obama said the $100 million would come from “efficiencies” in agency operations, and would be in addition to future cuts in programs that aren’t working.
Yet the red ink in the annual budget is currently in the hundreds of billions. He was asked if the efficiency saving isn’t just “a drop in the bucket”.
“It is,” he replied. “None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively, they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone … $100 million there, $100 million here - pretty soon, even here in Washington, it adds up to real money.”
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Obama orders Cabinet to cut spending by $100M
I have 1 silly question I just have to ask. Is Obama THAT stupid or does he think that WE are?
$100M is a wad of money, to the average guy on the street, but in the grand scheme of the federal budget, bailouts and blatant pork expenditures, it’s not even a drop in the bucket. Pretty soon it all adds up to REAL money?? Even by Washington standards? Mr. Obama, you will have to cut that much and 9 times more to equal a BILLION dollars, and that is when we get to the drop in the bucket of exactly how much of OUR tax dollars YOUR administration is wasting!
I have said this before but here it is again, Obama really does think that We, the People are that stupid. We are not! He seems to believe that Americans are too shallow to comprehend the exact dollar figure, in size and scope, that 1 BILLION dollars represents, and he doesn’t think we know what it can do.
To give the average reader an idea of the kind of people Obama believes us ALL to be, I am going to share a story that I was involved in a few years ago.
The Texas Lottery was at $4million, an after tax cash payout of about $1 million. I was about to go to lunch with a gentleman I used to conduct business with and we were sitting in his office talking shop. One of his employees was going nuts, he had bought a lottery ticket and was saying how rich he would be if he won. He asked me if I had bought one and I told him no, I hadn’t, that a $1 million payout was just enough to change my tax bracket and I didn’t need that. At the time I was not exaggerating either, that was long before heart trouble and diabetes took me out of the game.
He was shocked, he looked at me and said, “You can retire on a million dollars man”, to which I replied, “No, not really, well, you can, but not comfortably…” The guy looks at me and says, “There is NO WAY you can spend a million dollars”. My buddy has been sitting there taking it all in and now he pipes up to the guy and says, “Apparently, you don’t know how to shop!!”
Obama seems to think that ALL Americans are like the guy that thought there was no way to spend a million bucks, and this $100M thing is supposed to make him look great to the unwashed masses!
Obama, wrong about Americans again!
I’ll say the same thing here that I said elsewhere…. That’s like me spending $1000 a day on new clothes, and cutting out a latte’ to save money. Doesn’t mean dick!
I do believe he thinks WE are that stupid.
Kate, I think so too…
You know that 100 million is like pissing in the ocean. Don’t mean a thing by comparison.
If I were the CEO in a major corporation with a budget deficit that could cause the company to go into bankruptcy or worse and offered to cut the budget by 1/4 or 1/2 of 1% to balance the budget, the stock holders would likely throw me out the nearest window and then stomp my sorry ass to jello. Yup, that means you’re fired!
I could save him 300 billion a year if he puts me in charge of DHS.
Get rid of the Dept. of Energy and the do nothing assholes that just keep their seats warm.
Get rid of the Dept of Education who can’t
Get rid of the Endowment of the Arts. Who wants to look at a cross in a glass of urine?
Get rid of the IRS and institute a flat tax.
Close half of these worthless overseas bases and start building nuclear subs to patrol the oceans instead.
Tell Iraq it’s your baby now, Sayanara sucker lips.
Tell chavez since he get’s 3 1/2 billion a year for citgo gasoline, we’ll put a surcharge of 2 billion a year on his royalty’s.
Ohhhhhhhhh, I could really save us some money instead of the chump change he wants to feed us. Screw him!
“We…have…a confidence gap - when it comes to the American people,ďż˝? he told reporters.
I’d say that it’s one helluva confidence gap.
What happens when a significant portion of the people feel a total disconnect with the government in power?
What happens when a significant portion of the people feel a total disconnect with the government in power?
Revolution.
Vigilante’s got it right: start eliminating ENTIRE Cabinet positions and their entire departments. Few people see it, but on the sidebar of my blog I write: “DRILL NOW, BUILD NOW and CUT NOW: Kill Earmarks, balanced Fed & Local Budgets. Bring in Murray Blum!”
Remember Murray Blum (Charles Grodin) from the movie DAVE with Kevin Kline? Dave brought in Blum to balance the budget — a completely uninvolved CPA who knows figures. And that’s essentially all you’d need. Someone who doesn’t MIND ripping and tearing. Everyone’s ox would get gored but the states would be better off. BRING IN MURRAY BLUM!
BZ
Well our worries are over…my of my….$100MM….that ought to cover the deficit…..makes you wonder if he can count over 10 with his clothes on…
Awww, really. What a joke. The Bama-in-Chief has committed us to $100,000,000,000 at the G20 conference a few days ago. An interest free present to the Socialists at the IMF.
I could spend a million dollars a day, just give me the chance. I could go through 100 million in no time at all.
‘Comrade Obama’ must think Americans are as stupid as he is.
I have some more ideas for cutting money. The Federal government give a lot of that tax money back to the States in the form of Federal grants for stuff like education, highway infrastructure, etc. How about lets reverse the process… All the taxes go to the States first, then the Federal government can submit spending requisitions to the States. The States can remit the tax revenue to the Federal government after approval by their legislature. For programs where the Federal would return the money back to the States, the States can just keep it and eliminate the middle man.
Oh and no Flat Tax. Go to the fair tax and stop taxing income entirely. We need to move to a spending tax system that does not punish investment, savings and hard work. It could incorporate every person in this country, be they legal or illegal, because even those paid in cash still purchase goods. It could be graduated so that stable goods and necessities would have little or no tax while luxury goods would have a higher tax rate. It would eliminate tax evasion (an apparent qualification for Obama’s cabinet) and would not take over 86,000 pages and a team of lawyers to understand.
Grrr… I was in a hurry. WordPress needs an edit button on their comments.
Yes, we will fall for it again because half of America is idiots, our educational system grantees it.
I took on a trillion as a project. You have got to see how a trillion really looks.
We need serious action at our government level.
I’m with BZ -BRING IN MURRAY BLUM! (great Movie)
Wow, Obama is such an economist! He should be highly congratuated for his budget cuts. He single handily cut the budget by .002857 percent. That bucket of water he threw in Lake Erie just may cause it to overflow its banks.