In a depressingly recurring scenario, the Obama administration announces a very negative fact as a great positive! And the great unwashed eat it up:
A White House official hit back at claims the administration was making only modest savings by shaving 17 billion dollars off a whopping 3.4 trillion dollar US budget due to be unveiled Thursday. "I'm going to come back and say, under any set of assumptions, finding the 17 billion dollars a year, I don't think, is a side show," White House budget chief Peter Orszag said on MSNBC.
I agree with Mr. Orszag, this isn't a sideshow. To qualify as a sideshow the savings should be at least 3-4%, not a paltry 0.5%. Unsurprisingly, half the 121 programs cut come from the defense department. Who could have guessed that? Here's an idea though for the future, strike anything that has Murtha, Byrd, or any other Congressperson's name in it. Why, I'll bet we can get to sideshow status in a New York minute!
But get this, straight from President Obama's lips:
Answering criticism that his cuts were but a drop in a multi-trillion-dollar spending bucket, Obama said: "Some of the cuts we're putting forward today are more painful than others. Some are larger than others. In fact a few of the programs we eliminate will produce less than a million dollars in savings. Outside of Washington, that's still a lot of money."
Gives you a lot of insight as to what he really thinks of all you rubes out there doesn't it?
DOWNDATE: E-mailed this to Instapundit in response to his using the same "news" reports about President Obama's budget knife: When all you've got experience with is a ladle, every problem looks like an empty soup bowl.