Obama - Cutting $17 Billion from Budget

This story is from CNN

The White House today will detail a proposal to save $17 billion next year by eliminating or reducing 121 federal programs, according to a senior administration official. Roughly $11.5 billion of the savings would come from the discretionary side of the fiscal 2010 budget -- that is, from programs that do not receive automatic funding. And roughly half of the savings would come from non-defense programs, the official said.

Among the programs on the president's chopping block:

• A long-range navigation system now made obsolete by the GPS. Cost: $35 million.

• An early education program called Even Start, the performance of which had been poor. Cost: $66 million.

• A Department of Education attaché position in Paris. Cost: $632,000.

• The Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation, which only pays out 20% of its funds in awards every year. Cost: $1 million.

• A program that pays states to clean out abandoned mines even after the mines have been cleaned out. Cost: $142 million.

But it was unclear Wednesday whether the $17 billion in savings in 2010 would be used to fund other federal programs or to reduce the country's growing deficit. The House and Senate have agreed to amore than $3.5 trillion budget outline for fiscal 2010, which begins Oct. 1. That's roughly the size of the president's budget request. The proposals Congress and the president are making, however, would push long-term deficits significantly higher.