The White House today says tomorrow’s FY2011 budget is “proposing more than 120 terminations, reductions, and savings for approximately $20 billion in savings this year.” (I assume they mean next year, since this year’s budget is already enacted.)
To put that in perspective, that’s about the same number of programs the White House proposed cutting last year, and, as I wrote after they released last year’s budget, a significantly lower number than what President Bush proposed cutting every year of his second term.
Granted, the proposed savings — $20 billion — is a bit higher than what Bush ever proposed saving (and what Obama proposed last year), but since the White House has not yet broken out how much of that is mandatory (and almost impossible to cut) and how much is discretionary, it’s hard to put much weight in that number now.
The Obama White House is also touting the relative success they had achieving their proposed cuts last year compared to President Bush. But two observations are in order: First, President Bush proposed cutting significantly more programs (about 150 most years) than Obama, which skews the relative success rates. Second, in the early years of Bush’s administration, the deficit was small, so their was little pressure on Congress to deliver cuts. And, when the deficit started to grow in the later years, the Democrats took charge of Congress, and had little appetite for accepting Bush’s budget. Now, Obama’s party controls Congress and deficits are a pressing issue, so cuts should be easier.
The bottom line is that President Obama deserves credit for proposing some cuts, but some perspective is in order.
