- Annual amount of taxpayer money lost to fraud and criminal activity in the Social Security Program - $70 billion a year

- Annual amount of taxpayer money lost to fraud and criminal activity in the Medicare Program - $60 to $90 billion a year

- Annual amount of taxpayer money lost to fraud and criminal activity in the Medicaid Program - $30 to $40 billion a year

- Annual amount of taxpayer money lost to unnecessary and obsolete deployment of about 140,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, Japan, and Europe - $35 billion a year

- Annual amount of Congressional member earmarks that politicians wastefully dole out in exchange for re-election financial support - $16 billion a year

- Annual amount of savings by eliminating the dysfunctional, ill performing, and unneeded Federal government's Department of Education - $107 billion a year (Source: Cato Institute - Downsizing Government Project)

- Annual amount of savings by reducing the Federal government's civilian headcount by 200,000 people, back to the historical civilian employee level prior to Obama's inauguration - $20 billion a year

- President Obama's latest effort to trim excessive government expenses via reduction in government coffee cup purchases - Priceless

As always, you cannot make this stuff up. The above list of REAL expenses cuts via fraud and criminal activity reduction and unnecessary military and government bureaucracy spending comes out to at least $338 billion a year.

In the face of these pre-identified savings and our $15 TRILLION national debt level, the President signed an executive order on November 9, 2011 that instructed the government bureaucracy to take the following steps:

Reduced the amount of money Federal agencies can spend on promotional (T-shirts,coffee cups, pens, etc.) items to promote the work of their agencies. Reduced the amount of government cell phones and computers to be purchased and issued to employees.Encouraged Federal agencies and employees to use video conferencing as a replacement for traveling.Reduced the size of the government executive vehicle fleet.

The President's objective is to eventually reduce government spending by $4 billion in these areas of government expense. $4 billion, pathetic. While a reduction in any unnecessary government spending is always a worthy goal, consider the $4 billion in light of the big picture:

$4 billion is only 1.2% of the amount we identified above in potential savings.$4 billion is only .002% of October, 2011's monthly Federal government deficit.$4 billion is only .0003% of the expected 2011 Federal budget deficit.$4 billion is only .0001% of the expected 2011 Federal budget.$4 billion is only .0003% of the soon to be $15 TRILLION national debt.

As you can see, this executive order from the President can only be categorized as feeble. Again, we should applaud all government spending savings but these meager levels should be attained by middle level management government employees. One would certainly hope the most powerful man in the world would be involved in more global areas of government efficiency, well beyond cutting back on coffee cup purchases.

How meager are these potential expense savings? Consider the impact if we scaled the above math calculations to an average American household's budget (about $50,000 a year):

If the Federal government's 2011 budget deficit was equivalent to the average income of a typical American household, then Obama's $4 billion expense reduction would be equivalent to $1.54.If the Federal government's 2011 total budget was equivalent to the average income of a typical American household, then Obama's $4 billion in expense reduction would be equivalent to $.55.If the Federal government's national debt was equivalent to the average income of a typical American household, then Obama's $4 billion in expense reduction would be equivalent to $.13.

In other words, these proposed savings by the most powerful person in the world is equivalent, at most, to the cost of one Sunday newspaper per year.

Unbelievable insanity. And this passes for leadership in Washington. Two steps from come to mind that would help us start taking real steps to fix this problem,not the trivial actions from the Obama administration:

Step 1 would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five years. This is the only way we can make any kind of substantial dent into Federal government spending and our national debt. This is the kind of bold leadership and initiative the President would be taking if he was a real leader. Worrying about coffee cups is neither leadership or effective.Step 2 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians.

It is becoming pretty obvious that the current set of Washington politicians do not know how or are unwilling to make the deep and necessary cuts to spending that are needed to save the country. The saddest part of this observation is that many of these expense reductions can be done without alienating voters, only the criminals that defraud government programs and expense contractors that would see their business decrease as we reduce unnecessary military spending.

As today's title says, these are small political class minds working on small objectives. Unfortunately, given the issues facing the country today, we need broad imaginative minds working on large, strategic, and imaginative solutions. This dichotomy is what causes the insanity. Nigerian newspapers, news online, facts about Nigeria, source.

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