Its A Start

As a candidate Barack Obama scoffed at the savings John McCain offered by controlling earmarks.

Per Obama, earmark savings amount to $18 Billion.

Stating...

"it's not going to solve the problem".

In the final debate, when pressed by Bob Schieffer, Obama's big budget cut was a $15 Billion dollar subsidy.

As President he orders his Cabinet to slice spending by $100 million.

Did I miss that $15 Billion subsidy cut?

Amazingly there were those in the press who called them out on it...

JENNIFER LOVEN, AP: The $100 million target figure that the president talked about today with the Cabinet, can you explain why so small?...Why not target a bigger number?

TAPPER: You were talking about an appropriations bill a few weeks ago about $8 billion being minuscule -- $8 billion in earmarks. We were talking about that and you said that that...$100 million is a lot but $8 billion is small?

The New York Post put it this way...

Obama's not asking for cuts of $100 mil from each department -- which would also be negligible. He's looking at a cumulative $100 million -- across the entire federal budget.

And this, after he signed one piece of legislation for $787 billion and another for $410 billion -- and then introduced a record $3.6 trillion federal budget.

Click for the visual of $100 Million vs. $1 Trillion.

The "unhealthy" reaction by those "right-wing extremists" to all that spending had something to do with the ordered cuts and the scientific community is united in that fact.

The President knows it too...

"We also have a deficit _ a confidence gap _ when it comes to the American people," he told reporters. "And we've got to earn their trust."