No, that isn’t a joke or a typo. According to Politico:
President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year’s State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning.
Here are 3 reasons why this will be difficult:
- Healthcare – If Healthcare passes that will cost more than $1 trillion
- Stimulus – There are still hundreds of billions of dollars yet to be spent in through the stimulus bill
- Congress – regardless of what the President wants to do Congress ultimately has to approve the spending cuts. Just ask former President Bush how easy it was to get spending cuts enacted with members of his own party in control of Congress.
The alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter is an excellent example of why CAGW is skeptical. In May, 2009, President Obama singled out funding for the alternate engine as the poster child of defense waste. After many shallow veto threats President Obama signed an authorization bill that contained funding for the engine despite repeated engine failures of the alternate engine.
With a deficit of $1.4 trillion we commend the President for at least talking about cutting spending, but it takes two things to get spending cuts passed, specific ideas and political courage.
Citizens Against Government Waste has Prime Cuts which gives specifics on where to cut.
As far as the political courage, well, that is one thing that CAGW can’t help with.
Filed under: Appropriations, Budget, Defense, Deficit, Stimulus
