VIDEO: Obama: Budget cuts a necessity

Today the Obama Administration is announcing a very small effort to reduce (only “unnecessary and wasteful”) deficit spending, and yet liberal groups will attack them for promoting a policy that will kill the economy–or at least prolong the recession.  And conservatives will

The Commerce Department’s proposed 2012 budget makes tough choices and reduces spending by $242 million, while making important investments that will help America out-build and out-innovate our economic competitors.With a proposed five-year, non-security discretionary spending freeze that will save $400 billion, President Obama’s budget reduces non-security, discretionary spending to its lowest percentage of the economy since President Dwight Eisenhower was in office. Among the highlighted cuts and reductions:$15.8 million from eliminating the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms program;$37.3 million from eliminating EDA’s 21st Century Innovation Infrastructure program;$20 million by restructuring the International Trade Administration to focus on high-priority markets and industries. This means eliminating a number of foreign posts, among other cost savings; $43 million by eliminating the Emergency Steel Guaranteed Loan Program;More than $2 million by reducing the reliance of the Baldridge Performance Excellence Program on federal funding and shifting it to a private sector footing, and;$20 million by eliminating the Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction Program. In addition to the program cuts mentioned above, the budget includes savings that result from reforming the way Commerce works – doing more, while spending less. That meant changing how the department handles acquisitions and logistics, such as shipping, to find places where it can leverage buying power; tightening the filling of vacancies to the highest priority positions and better using information technologies. All told, the proposed 2012 budget finds more than $140 million in administrative savings.

President Barack Obama's fiscal 2012 budget aims to cut the massive federal deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years, White House budget chief Jack Lew said Sunday, warning of "tough choices" ahead.That figure is more than double the $400 billion of cuts in non-essential programs Obama unveiled in his State of the Union address last month as part of a five-year spending freeze. The president said those savings would take place over 10 years.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's proposed budget will call for reductions in in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs by including a proposal to lower cost-of-living adjustments to government social safety net spending, a senior administration official says.

Why has the Euro-zone fallen back into recession, and why can't it shake of its seemingly never-ending crisis? Is there light at the end of the tunnel - or is that an approaching train? A walk through the Euro-zone with charts of macro-economic data reveals the crisis is far from over. Instead, most trends are pointing towards further deterioration - facts as opposed to the hope and anecdote that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

On January 30, 25 of 27 nations signed the Merkozy accord calling for strict budget discipline and "quasi-automatic sanctions" for nations that violate budget rules. Only the UK and Czech Republic refused to sign. Following that ceremonious signing it took precisely two days for European bureaucrats to propose "Application of the rules in a strict manner in the face of a downturn doesn’t make sense". Spain Poses Six-Pack Rules Challenge