For the decimally ignorant, we note that $17 billion is 0.5% of the entire budget and 1% of this year's $1.7 trillion deficit. It is also less than the $34 billion in cuts proposed by the despised Bush administration last year, none of which came close to being enacted into law.
As WaPo reports, even analysts at left-leaning think-tanks like Brookings are calling this one out:
"Even if you got all of those things, it would be saving pennies, not dollars. And you're not going to begin to get all of them," said Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings Institution economist who waged her own battles with Congress as a senior official in the Clinton White House budget office. "This is a good government exercise without much prospect of putting a significant dent in spending."
We figure that the White House expects Americans to get their millions, billions and trillions confused enough not to realize what's going on.
5 comments:
Cuts are cuts. We obsess so much over comparison against prior presidents that we lose sight of the present. I think that we should forget precedent and focus on the fact that he is a liberal spender who is cutting spending, which is a good thing.
If we can learn as a nation to focus on the positive it will move the country ahead much more quickly.
Ryan
Dude, how is it positive to "cut" a minuscule percentage of the spending you're adding? That's not being positive, that's being delusional.
This is like people who think they're saving money by spending twice their income buying things on "sale"? How did I go broke: I saved money on every purchase!
Shoes, we note that our friend Ryan, a.k.a "Cash Gifting Practice seems to run
a site urging people to join his "program" for getting rich.
Need anyone say more?
Minor correction to His SWNIDness:
The phrase "$1.7 billion deficit" should read "$1.7 trillion deficit."
Thanks, LW: we've corrected the mistake, which ironically seems to have proved our point anyway.
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