Obama Announces Whopping $17 Billion in Budget Cuts; Less Than 0.5% of Total Budget (Video)

"These savings, large and small, add up," Obama said. "The 121 budget cuts we are announcing today will save taxpayers nearly $17 billion next year alone. That's a lot of money, even by Washington standards."

"It's as if you took a teaspoon of water out of the bathtub while you left the spicket on at full speed," Sen. Judd Greg (R-NH) on President Obama's "budget cuts".

A blog post on the White House website by Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag includes a full link to the budget document and the terminations, reductions and savings volume.



Fox News reports:

WASHINGTON -- The ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee said Thursday he's not impressed by President Obama's proposal to cut $17 billion out of the federal budget.

Appearing on FOX News, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said it's important to place the $17 billion figure in the context of the president's $3.4 trillion budget.

"It's as if you took a teaspoon of water out of the bathtub while you left the spicket on at full speed," he said.

"Basically right now we're running up a debt that is so high as a percentage of our gross national product that we couldn't even get into the European union," he said. "I mean we're headed to third-world country status if we keep this up."

Obama's $17 billion proposed cut represents a roster of 121 budget cuts and equals about one-half of 1 percent of the $3.4 trillion budget Congress has approved for next year.

Obama said the cuts appear small only in Washington.

"All across this country, Americans are responding to difficult economic times by tightening their belts and making tough decisions about where they need to spend and where they need to save," Obama said Thursday as he unveiled the details.

"The question the American people are asking is whether Washington is prepared to act with the same sense of responsibility," he said. "I believe we can and must do exactly that."

Obama acknowledged that these steps won't be easy but he urged lawmakers to act.

"For every dollar we seek to save there will be those who have an interest in seeing it spent," he said, claiming that's how unnecessary programs survive and budgets swell.

"But at this moment -- at this difficult time for our nation -- we cannot accept business as usual," he said. "We cannot accept anything less than a government ready to meet the challenges of our time."

White House budget director Peter Orszag said the president's plan for program cuts is just a start and that a lot more needs to be done to dig the government out of its fiscal hole, especially curbing the growth of the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for the elderly and the poor.

"But $17 billion a year is not chump change by anyone's accounting," he said.

Jake Tapper & AP Drill Gibbs on Meaningless Barack Obama $100 Million Budget Cut (Video)

Graphic from Heritage.

Jake Tapper of ABC News and Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press nail Robert "Peter Griffin" Gibbs on the laughable $100 million proposed budget cuts by Barack Obama.

Gibbs, in typical snarky elitist form, trys to make light of the situation.

Newsbusters reports:

It must be hard to keep a straight face when you report that the President of United States going to cut $100 million from a $3.5 trillion budget and then say he is serious about cutting government spending.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs couldn't pull it off. In the White House's April 20 press briefing, Gibbs was asked by Associated Press reporter Jennifer Loven why the $100-million target was so small and she even accused him of making a joke about it.

"I'm being completely sincere that only in Washington, D.C. is $100 million not a lot of money," Gibbs said. "It is where I'm from. It is where I grew up. And I think it is for hundreds of millions of Americans."

Rep. Eric Cantor Discusses GOP Budget Alternative (Video)

This morning, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) appeared on Fox News to discuss the budget debate and the state of the economy.

He explains that the GOP budget is designed to actually create wealth instead of redistributing wealth.

Amen to that!

Rep. Paul Ryan Leaves Chris Matthews Speechless In Obama Budget Debate (Video)

From today's "Morning Joe".

Scorecard: Ryan 10, Matthews: Zero!

Watch the end of this clip, after Ryan refutes Matthews' "President Hoover" comparisons, the Tingly Chrissy is left speechless.

All he can say to respond to Ryan is "We'll see..."

VIDEO: Kettle, It's Pot You're Black; Sen. Boxer On GOP Objection To Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster.

Budget bills require 60 votes to pass the Senate, however, reconciliation would reduce that number to 51 making it impossible for Republicans to stop the Obama/Pelosi/Reid socialist take-over of America.

Socialist Spendocrats like Boxer are trying to use reconciliation to pass both Obama's National Healthcare plan and his job-killing Cap and Trade energy plan.

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) says reconciliation on a health care bill would be the equivalent of a "declaration of war".

Boxer's assault on past GOP reconciliation efforts is a childish display. These libs are so full of crap, it's painful to watch at times.

They continue to blatantly try to re-write the rules to pass their radical agenda.

The Hill reports:

"There is an interest in not taking any tools off the table," Sebelius said in response to a request by committee ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) that she reject reconciliation.

Enzi replied that if Democrats use reconciliation, which would enable them to pass a healthcare bill with just 51 votes rather than the 60 normally required in the Senate, it would be the equivalent of a "declaration of war" on the minority.

"I know that the president is very dedicated to having a bipartisan process for health reform," Sebelius said.

Judd Gregg: U.S. Couldn't Even Join EU Due to Debt Levels

I'm so glad Sen. Gregg stayed in Congress instead of selling his soul to the devil.

He's already said Obama's Budget will bankrupt the nation and that the White House's math is a "spurious" lie.

Gregg is widely respected for his fiscal opinions and Obama himself gives Gregg's comments a sense of stinging credibility. When the president introduced Gregg as his nominee for Commerce Secretary last month, he said Gregg is known for is fiscal discipline.

From The Hill:

The United States wouldn't even be eligible to enter the European Union if it wanted to because of its debt levels, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed Thursday.

"We won't even be able to get into the EU if we wanted to," Gregg said this morning on MSNBC, "because our government is so large and so huge."

The European Union's Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) adopted in 1997 requires a budget deficit to be less than three percent, and requires a national debt beneath 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"We've been lectured by France on the fact that we're not fiscally responsible right now," Gregg, the would-be commerce secretary, noted with incredulity.

***

It's never good when the French socialists are lecturing the U.S. about fiscal responsibility.

Sen. McConnell: Budget makes USA worse than Cuba!

Well damn! If we're going to be communist like Cuba and reach out to Cuba, why not be as broke as Cuba!

"They call him Obama! He's the black Che Guevera and the Messiah of Communist moonbats!"

President Barack Obama's 3.55-trillion-dollar budget plan will leave the United States with a worse budget deficit than Cuba, a leading Republican critic warned Tuesday.

"This creates for us a higher deficit than Cuba's. This is not the kind of position we want to put the United States in," Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters.

Other Republican critics of Obama's spending policies, including his nearly 800-billion-dollar economic stimulus package, have variously warned that he risks turning the country into Argentina, France, Germany, or Zimbabwe.


Asked for the figures underpinning the charge, a McConnell aide pointed to a report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that warned the US budget deficit for fiscal year 2009, ending September 30, would swell to 13.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

Cuba's deficit in 2008 was 4.1 percent of GDP using the official exchange rate, or 1.57 percent using another measure of total national output, according to the CIA.

According to official Cuban government figures, Cuba's projected deficit in 2009 will run to 5.6 percent of GDP, less than the 6.7 percent it reached in 2008.

VIDEO: MS NBC Anchor and Obama Slobberer Gets Crushed By Sen. Gregg On His "Bankrupt America" Comment

For the record, I detest this liberal piglet Norah O'Donnell.

Yesterday, Gregg said of Obama's budget plan: "This country will go bankrupt".

Gregg won this debate in a landslide!

Nice try, Norah, trying to defend your Messiah. I particularly like when you referred to Gregg's comments as "alarmist"!

Hey kettle, it's the pot. You're black!

Wake up, Norah! Your Messiah is the Alarmist-In-Chief sweetie!

VIDEO: Sen. Gregg On Obama Budget 'This country will go bankrupt'

Senator Judd Gregg said last week that the numbers the Obama Administration is using for its Budget are a lie.

Today, the one time Commerce Secretary Nominee who rightfully withdrew over "irresolvable conflicts", said of Obama's budget, "This country will go bankrupt."

WASHINGTON – The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee says the Obama administration is on the right course to save the nation's financial system.

But Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also says President Barack Obama's massive budget proposal will bankrupt the country.

Gregg says he has no regrets in withdrawing his nomination to become commerce secretary. He pulled out after deciding he could not fully back the administration's economic policies.

The senator said Obama's spending plan in the midst of a prolonged recession would leave the next generation with a country too expensive to live in.

Gregg appeared Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."