POTUS, Working Hard for You

Apparently President Obama has put on his thinking cap and found some cuts in this year’s proposed budget plan… $775 Million Dollars! Yay! (But we’ll still be spending $1.5TN more than we take in – thanks Kids!)

[President Obama’s budget director Jack] Lew said that the Valentine’s Day budget will proposed cutting in half community service block grants to grassroots groups in poor communities. This cut will save $350 million and this cut will affect the type of community programs Obama worked with as a local organizer, Lew noted in an opinion piece in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times.

Source: New York Times

Having a hard time imagining what $775 Million amounts to in the total budget plan? This might help, one website has created a helpful pie chart graphic to help you out. If that doesn’t help you, maybe this YouTube video from President Obama’s first attempt to trim the budget by $100 million might help:

Just imagine that instead of removing one-quarter of a penny, President Obama plans on taking nearly two whole pennies off the table, and you’ll have a sense of the scope of the cuts President Obama is going to propose next week.

Of course, this is in addition to the federal pay freeze he already proposed, which I covered earlier here…
Sources:

The Hill: Budget director previews cuts in Obama’s 2012 plan

New York Times: The Easy Cuts Are Behind Us

Doug Ross: Obama’s “tough budget cuts in pictures” in pictures

YouTube video: Obama Budget Cuts Visualization

Ken’s Project Blog: How To Read A News Story