Obama Orders Some Agencies to Cut Their Budgets 5% (Update1)
By Roger Runningen
bloomberg.com
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will order some federal agencies to reduce their fiscal 2012 budget requests by 5 percent to help reduce the deficit, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag will say today.
The White House released excerpts from Orszag’s speech, which is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at the Center for American Progress in Washington. Orszag, in an excerpt, said that “as stewards of the American people’s tax dollars, we cannot afford to waste money on programs that do not work, that are outdated, or that are duplicative of one another.”
The disclosure of the budget orders comes in advance of the midterm elections and voter anxiety over a projected record deficit of $1.55 trillion this year and forecasts for red ink into next year.
U.S. debt is forecast to rise from 53 percent of the economy to about 90 percent in 2020, according to the non- partisan Congressional Budget Office.
In this year’s budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, Obama froze annual appropriations outside of defense and national security programs for three years. He also proposed allowing tax cuts from the administration of George W. Bush to expire at the end of this year and has named a bipartisan commission to try to tame the deficit.
Redundant Programs
Orszag will say today that the administration is directing agencies to look at programs that may be overlapping or redundant. The orders apply to discretionary programs, which account for less than half of the federal budget.
The administration cited as potential targets more than 110 federally funded programs in science, technology, engineering and math in 14 departments and agencies.
In addition, there are more than 100 programs that support youth mentoring scattered across 13 agencies and more than 40 programs located in 11 departments with responsibility for employment and training that may overlap.
“This redundancy wastes resources and makes it harder to act on each of these worthy goals,” Orszag said in the prepared remarks. “But it is central to making government work better, reducing waste, and actually delivering the services people want and need.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at rrunningen@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 8, 2010 07:39 EDT |
