WASHINGTON — It was only three years ago that then-Sen. Barack Obama voted for a delicate political compromise to pay Wyoming and other coal states $1.5 billion in future years from a mine cleanup fund. On Thursday, as President Obama released details of his 2010 budget proposal, those payments were on the chopping block.
Skeptics have criticized Obama's proposed cuts as meager, as the 121 programs he wants to trim or eliminate would save $17 billion -- or one-half of 1% of the budget. And the mine program illustrates that many of the cuts are unlikely to happen at all, because of deals already struck in Congress and intense opposition from lawmakers.
"These moneys are Wyoming's moneys. The White House does not have the right to take them away," Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said. The state's delegation threatened to sue if the 2006 deal was broken.
Obama also proposed eliminating federal payments to states for incarcerating illegal immigrants convicted of crimes. But Congress rejected that idea when President Bush made the same proposal, and the plan still enjoys strong bipartisan support -- including among officials in California, which receives a large portion of the money.
With its proposed spending cuts, revealed Thursday as the White House released a more detailed picture of its $3.6-trillion budget, the administration is aiming to cast itself as a careful custodian of tax dollars.
But Republicans said the reductions were insufficient.
"It literally will have virtually no impact on the deficit and the debt as we move forward," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who earlier this year was Obama's Commerce secretary nominee before changing his mind. "While you're taking these few dollars out . . . they are adding back in massive amounts of spending."
The administration knows that fights over its proposed spending cuts are coming.
Every program has a supporter, Obama's budget director, Peter R. Orszag, acknowledged Thursday on a White House blog, "and there will be vocal and powerful interests that will oppose different aspects of this budget."
He told reporters that the cuts were important, no matter how small: "Just like a broken window has been shown to lead to increased crime because of the signal it sends, perpetuating inefficient programs with a shrug of the shoulders undermines confidence in government and wastes resources."
