Obama not fooling everyone with his "budget cuts"

Like a teenager who racks up thousands of dollars in charges on his parents credit card--and then cancels a $20 annual magazine subscription to "prove" he's financially prudent, Barack Obama's campaign office (When did he stop campaigning?) announced some budget cuts this morning.

Quite a few media outlets are falling for the campaign's cock-and-bull story, but not Politico:

With Republicans demanding more budget discipline, President Barack Obama rolled out a new regimen of spending cuts Thursday, promising nearly $17 billion in savings next year – much of it at the expense of vested interests often allied with his critics.

Democrats will feel some bite as well, but the Republican tilt is stronger from military contractors to oil and nuclear interests, bankers, wealthy farmers and Dick Cheney's old home state of Wyoming.

About half the $17 billion will come from defense, much through the termination of billions in dollars of major aircraft programs. But other targets include oil and gas research in the Energy Department, a nuclear power demonstration program, and federal abandoned mine payments to Western coal states. With Republican Ted Stevens now gone from the Senate, his Alaska programs make for easy picking, and a proposed cut in subsidies for farmers appears to have been altered since February to now hit couples with annual sales over $1 million.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said the decisions were "evidence based" and not ideological. Indeed, a West Virginia highway corridor favored by a Democratic elder, Sen. Robert Byrd, is among the targets, and the administration would do away advanced payments to lower-income, working-class families who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Ah yes, Byrd. But West Virginia is a state the Democrats haven't won in a presidential election since 1996.

Big deal.

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