NOT A JOKE

OUT OF ONE SIDE OF MOUTH

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is citing a host of government programs for budget cuts, saying that "these savings, large and small, add up."

The president went before the cameras Thursday to discuss his proposal for roughly 120 budget cuts totaling $17 billion — a sum that would be only about one-half of 1 percent of the $3.4 trillion budget that Congress has approved for next year. (LOL!!!!)

He said he's entrusting budget director Peter Orszag to follow through with the cuts. But there already have been indications that he'll meet some resistance in Congress.

Obama acknowledged that "none of this will be easy." But he said he's determined to cut in half the projected budget deficit in half within four years.

OUT OF OTHER SIDE OF MOUTH

WASHINGTON (AP) — In twin strokes, President Barack Obama is calling on Congress to award generous budget increases to domestic programs while proposing relatively modest cuts to wasteful or obsolete programs that just won't seem to die.

Obama's promised line-by-line scrub of the federal budget has produced a roster of 121 budget cuts totaling $17 billion — or about one-half of 1 percent of the $3.4 trillion budget Congress has approved for next year. The details were unveiled Thursday.

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. (REALLY?)
Those savings are far exceeded by a phone-book-sized volume detailing Obama's generous increases for domestic programs that will accompany the call for cuts.

And instead of devoting the savings to defray record deficits, the White House is funneling them back into other programs.

Friends do you see how we are so screwed?

D