Smoke & Mirrors: A Fake $100 Million Spending Cut

My last post included a graph that shows the past and projected deficits of the federal government. That was yesterday.

Today we learn that the $100 million budget cut search ordered by President Obama -- in itself a tiny drop in a mighty big bucket -- is even less than it appears.

Mr. Obama is asking his cabinet secretaries to look for $100 million in cuts in the growth of next year's budget and (get your duct tape ready) this is so the money can be used for other necessary projects!

In short, there is no $100,000 spending cut. Period. End of story.

It's all kabuki theatre, focus group tested and bounced off a behavioral psychologist for good measure.

Even if the cuts were real, they are inconsequential. Ask liberal economist Paul Krugman, in the New York Times:

Let’s say the administration finds $100 million in efficiencies every working day for the rest of the Obama administration’s first term. That’s still around $80 billion, or around 2% of one year’s federal spending.

The Associated Press, in an article entitled, "Spin Meter: Saving Federal Money the Easy Way,"

Cut a latte or two out of your annual budget and you've just done as much belt-tightening as President Barack Obama asked of his Cabinet on Monday.

The thrifty measures Obama ordered for federal agencies are the equivalent of asking a family that spends $60,000 in a year to save $6.

Obama made his push for frugality the subject of his first Cabinet meeting, ensuring it would command the capital's attention. It also set off outbursts of mental math and scribbled calculations as political friend and foe tried to figure out its impact.

The bottom line: Not much.

Okay, how much is not much?

For all the trumpeting, the effort raised questions about why Obama set the bar so low, considering that $100 million amounts to:

-- Less than one-quarter of the budget increase that Congress awarded to itself.

-- 4 percent of the military aid the United States sends to Israel.

-- Less than half the cost of one F-22 fighter plane.

-- 7 percent of the federal subsidy for the money-losing Amtrak passenger rail system.

-- 1/10,000th of the government's operating budgets for Cabinet agencies, excluding the Iraq and Afghan wars and the stimulus bill.

The President and all his men have calculated that the American people are dimwits, that we cannot distinguish between large numbers and even larger numbers.

To me, the most frightening prospect is that they may be correct.