Since President Obama took office in 2009, money-saving ideas have continued to sit on a shelf, collecting dust. Four years ago, there were 10,894 recommended reductions, compared with 16,900 reductions, worth an additional $30 billion, awaiting action today. Since those “figures reflect the most conservative possible accounting” of the number of recommendations, their value is likely to be “significantly higher,” the committee explains.That’s quite a contrast to the endless parade of sky-is-falling scenarios broadcast by the Cabinet during the sequestration fight over a mere $85 billion reduction in the rate of spending growth. The auditors’ $67 billion in savings is low-hanging fruit, ripe for the plucking, that could easily fund the Departments of Energy, Transportation and Interior, the Social Security Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and the Small Business Administration in their entirety. Not, it goes without saying, that all of them actually deserve full funding.
Mr. Obama can certainly share some of the blame with his predecessor, George W. Bush, who ignored many of the proposals offered by the inspectors general. The difference is, Mr. Bush never conjured imaginary tales of budgetary horror while sitting on a stockpile of 10,000 alternative cuts that would make the government stronger and more focused, if implemented.
The legislative branch has just as much of a duty to identify and eliminate extravagant outlays as the executive. So Mr. Issa, California Republican, last week demanded answers from the chiefs at each of the major governmental departments about what unnecessary programs they intend to drop to prevent across-the-board reductions from touching the rarest of beasts —
http://nation.foxnews.com/white-house-tours/2013/03/11/revealed-67-billion-obama-could-have-cut-closing-peoples-house?cmpid=NL_foxnation
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