Yesterday the White House announced a minuscule $243 million in agency spending cuts through 2010, $102 million of which will be realized in the 2009 fiscal year.

A week late, the memo from OMB Director Peter Orszag and Cabinet Secretary Chris Lu is a reminder to taxpayers of President Obama’s promise to cut $100 million from the federal budget in 90 days.

The tardiness of the administration in putting together meager, and seemingly random spending cuts, does not represent a serious effort to curtail government spending.  The $102 million in cuts this year is a far cry from Obama’s campaign promise to cut more than he spends:

“You’ll hear Senator McCain say ‘he’s proposing a whole bunch of new spending’, but, actually, I’m cutting more than I’m spending, so that it will be a net spending cut.  The key is whether or not we’ve got priorities that are working for you, as opposed to those who have been dictating policy in Washington lately; that’s mostly lobbyists and special interests, we’ve got to put an end to that.” Sen. Barack Obama, 7 October 2008

The cuts represent only .003% of the 2009 and 2010 federal budgets.  They include thrifty measures like the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services cancelling their meeting in Australia; and the Department of Education actually using their own conference rooms instead of buying space for their Washington, DC based conferences.

Click here for a PDF of this release

(photo: http://www.camacdonald.com/petitepress/MON005.jpg)