Obama's budget cuts: Memory lapses

by Christi Parsons, Jim Tankersley and Mark Silva

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 clean-up fund.

On Thursday, as Obama released details of his budget proposal for next year, the payments were on the new president's chopping block.

Skeptics have already criticized Obama's proposed budget cuts as meager, as the 121 programs he wants to trim or eliminate would save $17 billion, or half of one percent of the budget.

But the tiny mine program also illustrates that many of the cuts are unlikely to happen at all, due to deals already struck in Congress and intense opposition from lawmakers.

"These monies are Wyoming's monies. The White House does not have the right to take them away," said Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), referring to the mine clean-up funds. The state's delegation threatened to sue if the 2006 deal were broken.

"The president," Lummis said, "obviously did not have a conversation with his own memory."

Similarly, Obama 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.

See the full report on Obama's budget cuts in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

The cuts were among the new specifics that Obama released about his proposed $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year. The White House on Thursday revealed those budget plans in greater detail than were contained in an outline released in February.

The plan includes $130 billion for the war Obama is trying to wind down in Iraq and his escalating military commitment in Afghanistan.

With its proposed spending cuts, 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 into the out years," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who earlier this year was Obama's nominee for Commerce secretary before changing his mind. "While you're taking these few dollars out . . . they are adding back in massive amounts of spending. 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 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."

Among the cuts Obama cited in a morning address were a long-range radio navigation system costing $35 million a year, which he said was obsolete in the age of global positioning satellites. He also proposed cutting the National Institute for Literacy, saying the Department of Education can do the work more efficiently.

Other proposed cuts, such as the money paid to states for incarcerating illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, will be harder to guide through Congress. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California recently called the program his top priority for federal criminal justice funding.

Obama has also targeted a $15 million plan for reducing diesel emissions in California, a program championed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Likewise, some of the planned cuts to the defense budget are likely to encounter opposition.

The Defense Department has proposed saving $435 million by eliminating a second engine design for the Joint Strike Fighter. However, the Defense Department has proposed eliminating the alternative engine in the past only to have Congress restore funding.

Obama proposes terminating the C-17 transport program, saving $3 billion a year. But Congress has resisted ending C-17 production in the past. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the powerful head of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, has pushed for continuing to build the plane, which is assembled in Long Beach, Calif.

The Abandoned Mine Lands payments are another example of a cut that may prove difficult to carry out.

The payments stem from a 1977 law that taxes state coal production. Half the revenues went to a federal fund to clean up abandoned mines around the country, while the other half was supposed to flow back to states that paid into the fund for clean-up and other projects.

Wyoming never received anything close to the amount it paid into the fund.

So, in 2006, Congress crafted a plan to pay Wyoming and a few other states and tribes $1.5 billion over 10 years.

Now, Obama says the $142 million in the new budget for the payouts is not necessary in states such as Wyoming, where the federal government has declared that all abandoned mines are clean or have clean-up plans in place