Well, we appreciate the sentiment, but $17 billion isn't going to do the trick

President Obama is delivering today on his promise to go through the budget line by line and eliminate wasteful programs. And the result? A whopping $17 billion in cuts. When you read through the list of programs to be cut, it all sounds very good. Yes, Virginia, there are wasteful programs in the federal budget. So kudos to the Obama administration for finding these cuts. Of course, it's just half of the $34 billion in cuts that President Bush proposed. And we all know that Congress will work to reinstate a lot of this money.

But $17 billion is just a drop compared to our $1.7 trillion deficit which is growing every day. But not to worry, because the Obama administration predicts $300 billion more in savings.

Administration officials defended their approach, saying the list of program reductions and terminations is just the start of a broader effort to cut spending and rein in a skyrocketing budget deficit, which is projected to approach $1.7 trillion this year. They also noted that the list does not include more than $300 billion in savings Obama proposes to squeeze from federal health programs and use to finance an expansion of coverage for the uninsured.

If you believe that 1) he can find $300 billion in health care savings and 2) that his proposals that will lead to a single payer health care plan run by the government is going to cost less than $300 billion, then you are just hopelessly naive.

So we can applaud the effort to find $17 billion in cuts, but let's not relax our vigilance on government spending. We're still at the top of the first inning in the efforts to rein in government spending and this little effort isn't going to get us where we need to be. And that is even assuming that Congress goes along with those cuts. Don't count on it.