Zeno Swijtink
05-07-2009, 04:32 AM
May 7, 2009
Obama Will Propose $17 Billion in Budget Cuts (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/us/politics/07budget.html)
By JACKIE CALMES
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday will unveil nearly $17 billion in additional budget cuts for the coming fiscal year to showcase what a top adviser called a “constant” effort to find savings at a time when the government’s costs for bailouts, health care and wars are mounting far faster.
The savings for the budget year starting Oct. 1 represent the sum of Mr. Obama’s promised “line by line” scrubbing of the federal budget. But, underscoring the nation’s fiscal plight, the proposed cuts represent about 1.4 percent of the $1.2 trillion deficit that is projected for the fiscal year 2010.
The president’s 10-year budget outline, released in February, shows the deficit declining by his final year in office to $533 billion, mostly through assumptions about when the recession will end and the pace of renewed economic growth that many economists consider somewhat optimistic.
The $17 billion would be saved through terminating or reducing 121 federal programs, ranging from $632,000 to eliminate the post of an attaché for the Education Department in the American Embassy in Paris to $142 million by ending a program to clean up abandoned mines.
But the money for abandoned mines as well as proposed cuts in farm subsidies illustrate the difficulties the administration will face in Congress, where, as administration officials acknowledged, every program has its patrons. When Mr. Obama proposed cuts in the mine and farm programs as part of his budget outline, lawmakers from rural and Western states objected.
An additional $66 million would come from ending the education program Even Start, which Congress has protected against past assaults; the administration will argue that other childhood education programs like Head Start are more effective.
“None of this is going to be easy,” said Peter R. Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
That is certainly true for roughly half of the savings that administration officials say will come from military programs. Those savings proposals are mostly known, having been outlined in April by Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense, as part of a comprehensive reordering of military spending priorities — to the howls of some lawmakers and the military industry. Among Mr. Gates’s targets are missile defense programs, the Army’s Future Combat Systems, Navy shipbuilding, the advanced F-22 fighter jets and a state-of-the-art helicopter fleet for the president.
Most of the 121 savings proposals are new, Mr. Orszag said. Many represent a pittance relative to the government’s $3.5 trillion annual budget, but the budgetary minutiae served to dramatize the administration’s green-eyeshades approach. It would save $35 million from ending the Loran-C long-range radio navigation system, now obsolete with the development of GPS, and shave millions from grants for public broadcasting, rail line relocations, education and fellowships.
“This is a product of going through the budget line by line,” as Mr. Obama promised since his presidential campaign, said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “It’s a constant, cumulative effort on this front to find savings and find reductions.”
Mr. Orszag emphasized that the $17 billion in proposed savings would be on top of other savings that the president called for in February. Those include proposed reductions in a Medicare program and a limit on deductions that wealthy taxpayers can claim, both of which have been attacked by senior Democrats in Congress.
The $17 billion is also separate from $100 million in savings that Mr. Obama called for in April, after directing his cabinet secretaries to find new reductions. That announcement was met with some derision, given the size of the deficit, but administration officials insisted that even small steps would reassure taxpayers.
Amid growing worry about the debt, some lawmakers are pressing the administration to take aim at Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which are the biggest and fastest-growing domestic programs, and the chief reason that future deficits are projected to balloon. Administration officials argue that Mr. Obama’s cost-saving initiative to overhaul the health care system would in turn reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending.
On Wednesday, the House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer, of Maryland, called for a bipartisan effort to fix Social Security’s long-term finances, although other Democratic leaders are opposed to addressing the politically charged issue now.
Obama Will Propose $17 Billion in Budget Cuts (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/us/politics/07budget.html)
By JACKIE CALMES
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday will unveil nearly $17 billion in additional budget cuts for the coming fiscal year to showcase what a top adviser called a “constant” effort to find savings at a time when the government’s costs for bailouts, health care and wars are mounting far faster.
The savings for the budget year starting Oct. 1 represent the sum of Mr. Obama’s promised “line by line” scrubbing of the federal budget. But, underscoring the nation’s fiscal plight, the proposed cuts represent about 1.4 percent of the $1.2 trillion deficit that is projected for the fiscal year 2010.
The president’s 10-year budget outline, released in February, shows the deficit declining by his final year in office to $533 billion, mostly through assumptions about when the recession will end and the pace of renewed economic growth that many economists consider somewhat optimistic.
The $17 billion would be saved through terminating or reducing 121 federal programs, ranging from $632,000 to eliminate the post of an attaché for the Education Department in the American Embassy in Paris to $142 million by ending a program to clean up abandoned mines.
But the money for abandoned mines as well as proposed cuts in farm subsidies illustrate the difficulties the administration will face in Congress, where, as administration officials acknowledged, every program has its patrons. When Mr. Obama proposed cuts in the mine and farm programs as part of his budget outline, lawmakers from rural and Western states objected.
An additional $66 million would come from ending the education program Even Start, which Congress has protected against past assaults; the administration will argue that other childhood education programs like Head Start are more effective.
“None of this is going to be easy,” said Peter R. Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
That is certainly true for roughly half of the savings that administration officials say will come from military programs. Those savings proposals are mostly known, having been outlined in April by Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense, as part of a comprehensive reordering of military spending priorities — to the howls of some lawmakers and the military industry. Among Mr. Gates’s targets are missile defense programs, the Army’s Future Combat Systems, Navy shipbuilding, the advanced F-22 fighter jets and a state-of-the-art helicopter fleet for the president.
Most of the 121 savings proposals are new, Mr. Orszag said. Many represent a pittance relative to the government’s $3.5 trillion annual budget, but the budgetary minutiae served to dramatize the administration’s green-eyeshades approach. It would save $35 million from ending the Loran-C long-range radio navigation system, now obsolete with the development of GPS, and shave millions from grants for public broadcasting, rail line relocations, education and fellowships.
“This is a product of going through the budget line by line,” as Mr. Obama promised since his presidential campaign, said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “It’s a constant, cumulative effort on this front to find savings and find reductions.”
Mr. Orszag emphasized that the $17 billion in proposed savings would be on top of other savings that the president called for in February. Those include proposed reductions in a Medicare program and a limit on deductions that wealthy taxpayers can claim, both of which have been attacked by senior Democrats in Congress.
The $17 billion is also separate from $100 million in savings that Mr. Obama called for in April, after directing his cabinet secretaries to find new reductions. That announcement was met with some derision, given the size of the deficit, but administration officials insisted that even small steps would reassure taxpayers.
Amid growing worry about the debt, some lawmakers are pressing the administration to take aim at Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which are the biggest and fastest-growing domestic programs, and the chief reason that future deficits are projected to balloon. Administration officials argue that Mr. Obama’s cost-saving initiative to overhaul the health care system would in turn reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending.
On Wednesday, the House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer, of Maryland, called for a bipartisan effort to fix Social Security’s long-term finances, although other Democratic leaders are opposed to addressing the politically charged issue now.