Obama Slashes Govt Programs

Obama's announcement that he's directing cabinet heads to cut 100 million in extraneous spending is not drawing the normal amount of ire from the left that such announcements usually produce. This sounds particularly ominous:

Obama also said that he plans to announce in the coming weeks the "elimination of dozens of government programs shown to be wasteful or ineffective," adding that there will be "no sacred cows, and no pet projects."

Such a bold proclamation should be sending shock waves through the nutrootospehere, right? Imagine Bush announcing such a dastardly act and how the left might see the immediate harm to our nation's children. Yet a quick check of the big lefty sites reveals they're obsessed with KSM and apparently cannot multi-task their outrage.

Anyway, everybody knows 100 million is a drop in the bucket--couch cushion change really, but cutting extraneous waste from the federal bureaucracy is ALWAYS a good thing no matter who does it and no matter whether programs are cut or not, so here's a clap for the president.

Now, does anyone really buy this wasn't a PR stunt unrelated to the tea party protesters? Obama knows the MSM won't remember the trillion+ Omnibus budget loaded with pork he refused to veto despite his no earmark pledge.

MORE 4/20/09

Let's get straight what's actually being 'cut' here. First, the 2010 budget has already been submitted to Pelosi. Matter of fact, Obama asked his bots to go out on the streets and get pledges for it, which apparently didn't strike Axelrod as being unhealthy. Presumably Obama's team has already gone through the new budget 'line by line' and found nothing wrong with it, since they submitted it. So....

The cuts being accomplished now are not true cuts, but rather changes in business practice. Let's not diminish this--saving money by doing things more efficiently is a good thing. It's what Gore, then Bush set out to do, but didn't.

But nobody should get carried away with such trivial bureaucratic stuff--it is NOT cutting the Federal budget because the FY2009 monies have already been appropriated and the agencies have authority to spend the money. Otherwise Obama would have vetoed the Omnibus.