President Obama today will conduct his first official meeting of his cabinet on April 20, and is expected to ask members of the cabinet to identify ways that they can trim $100 million from the federal budget.
A natural question would be, is that $100 million per agency or department represented at the meeting? No, this is a collective sum of savings from the entirety of the federal government’s budget. The article includes a single sentence that makes it clear just how laughable this is:
The federal deficit for March alone was $192.3 billion, and $100 million would represent about one-twentieth of 1 percent of that.
One-twentieth of 1 percent of the deficit for a single month! I did the math, and it’s actually more than 40% less than one-twentieth of 1 percent, but I can understand why the reporter wanted to round it up.
Let me put this in numbers the average American can better relate to. The budget Obama presented to Congress for fiscal 2010 is $3.6 trillion dollars. Asking cabinet members to save $100 million from that sum is proportionally equivalent to a family with an income of $100,000/year calling a family meeting to discuss ways that they might be able to save a total of $2.78 per year. Let me say that again: $2.78 PER YEAR! You could take your family of four to your favorite local family restaurant and save more than that by ordering water instead of soft drinks with the meal just ONE TIME! Way to challenge your staff to reach for the stars, Mr. President!
Now, let me ask you, is Obama at all serious about saving money from the budget? Does he care at all about the enormous deficits he has proposed? Don’t listen to his talk, watch his walk.
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