I work in a very corporate environment. It's full of management automatons who string inane buzzwords into even more nauseating nonsense. During large meetings we play buzzword bingo and there's a winner every time. (Please don't get me started on the usage of leverage as a verb.)
One of these tedious phrases is "low hanging fruit" - basically used when implying that one should focus the easiest target with the most return on investment.
Since Obama is announcing spending freezes, I say, I applaud your suddenly fiscally conservative strategy. Except, may I recommend that instead of a blind policy, you focus on the low hanging fruit?
Let us examine the proposed 2010 budget. First we have mandatory spending:
$695 billion (+4.9%) - Social Security
$453 billion (+6.6%) - Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) - Medicaid
$0 billion (-100%) - Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (-100%) - Financial stabilization efforts
$11 billion (+275%) - Potential disaster costs
$571 billion (-15.2%) - Other mandatory programs
$164 billion (+18.0%) - Interest on National Debt
Can't do much about these - thus the word mandatory. It's mandated by existing laws.
Now the discretionary spending:
$663.7 billion (+12.7%) - Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion (-1.7%) - Department of Health and Human Services
US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) - Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) - Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) - Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) - Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) - Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (-0.4%) - Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) - Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (-6.3%) - Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) - Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) - Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) - Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) - Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) - Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) - Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) - National Science Foundation
5.1 billion (-3.8%) - Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%) - National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) - Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) - Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (-14.3%) - General Services Administration
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) - Other Agencies
$105 billion - Other
Wowzers, look at that monster at the top - the Department of Defense. Well, OK, that's not news. After all, the US spends nearly as much on war as the entire remaining populace of Earth combined, and completely blows away any other individual country, including Russia and China. Well, that's what happens when you maintain a huge military, dozens of bases worldwide, bloated by out-of-control war profiteering, and more importantly, are fighting two resource draining wars simultaneously. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that imperialism is expensive - we're the only nation that projects its military power across the globe so forcefully and continuously. Other nations save billions of dollars by simply not doing that.
But wait, that's not all. If you add on other "security" related spending (you know, the type that Obama excluded from the freeze), you hit the trillion mark.
I'm just some guy, so let me quote Barney Frank:
The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy.
What's worse, there is some evidence that massive military spending increases US job losses. And now, because the Democrats are afraid of the teabaggers, we're getting freezes on non-security discretionary spending (however narrow or wide the scope, it still seems fuzzy). So in other words, the military spending has a negative impact on all other government spending - including some really important things like education and social programs.
So, Mr. President - if you really want to add some sanity to the budget - how about going after those low hanging fruit? They're so fat they're not even hanging in the air anymore, sprawled on the ground like giant mutated pumpkins you see at county fairs. Sure, these fruit are difficult to handle, spiky, poisonous, and probably rigged with explosives...but if we continue to avoid the $1 trillion gorilla, there might not be any space left for anyone else.