President-elect Barack Obama sounded more like a candidate than an incumbent this week when he talked about his plans to tighten the federal belt in addition to stimulating the moribund economy. "We're still going to have to make some tough choices," he said at a news conference Tuesday. "There are just going to be some programs that simply don't work, and we've got to eliminate them."
That's the kind of promise made on the campaign trail, where every office-seeker declares his or her determination to root out "waste, fraud and abuse." When it comes time to govern, however, elected officials find that the challenge is to spend less on services and bureaucracies that do work -- if not for everyone, at least for some entrenched constituency. And although he may save a few million here and there by pruning benefits for the wealthy, he can't make fundamental changes without overhauling or terminating entire programs. It's the difference between zeroing out farm subsidies for millionaires who shouldn't have received them in the first place and abandoning an outdated, Depression-era system that rewards agribusiness in good times and bad.
We don't mean to sound churlish. Obama deserves credit for talking about budget discipline even as the country slides into a potentially fearsome downturn. It sends a valuable message about his willingness to say no to those asking for federal help. He's preparing to seek a whopper of a stimulus package -- in the $500-billion range, according to some Democratic lawmakers -- that will nevertheless include less than some interest groups want from Uncle Sugar. As Congress decides what to include in that package, it should bear in mind the goal that Obama reiterated this week: providing not just a short-term jolt but also laying the groundwork for sustainable job creation and economic growth.
