Tech Implications Of Obama's Budget Cuts
President Obama will propose cutting or scaling back 121 programs in the detailed budget he will unveil Thursday, saving the federal government an estimated $17 billion in FY10, two senior administration officials said Wednesday. About half of the savings would come from defense programs and almost $12 billion would come from discretionary spending, the officials said. The administration aides defended the proposed level of savings, which amounts to only about 0.5 percent of the $3.4 trillion budget Congress recently approved for FY10. The figure, by "anyone's accounting, is a significant amount of money; that is in one year alone," one official said.
On the call, the officials listed two examples of the downsizing that involve technology. The U.S. government's long-range radio navigation system will be eliminated. They said it's a system that is now made obsolete by the prevalence of GPS: "It's not used, it's unnecessary, it costs us $35 million a year, and we perpetuate it just through inertia." Additionally, the administration is saying bon voyage to the Education Department's educational attaché in Paris. Team Obama is proposing that the agency instead use e-mail and videoconferencing and does not need a full-time representative there. The savings: $632,000 per year.
Stay tuned for more budget coverage on Thursday in CongressDaily
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