Hey everyone! My first column for American Issues Project is up. My column will be published there every Monday, and since I was out of town I just didn’t have a chance to feature it until today. Anyway, I discuss Obama’s much-hyped $17 billion budget cuts and put them into perspective in this column:

Economically speaking, Obama’s presidency has so far been a disaster. Campaign promise after campaign promise has been broken. The Democrats in Congress rammed through a pork-filled spending bonanza of a bill stuffed chock full of over 9,000 earmarks, costing almost $800 billion. The public debt has skyrocketed to over $11 trillion. Unemployment reached 8.9 percent last month, a 25-year high. As the economy looks worse and worse, Americans across the country are tightening their belts and cutting back spending. Obama is laughing about the economy on 60 Minutes (so much so that he was called “punch-drunk” by the host), and throwing weekly parties at the White House with cocktails and $100/lb wagyu steak.

And the “historic” $787 billion stimulus package that was supposed to revive the economy? Turns out, it really had very little to do with the economy. More than $200 billion went to states and cities, and the vast majority of that – 70 percent, actually – went to education and health care. 24 percent went to infrastructure, which actually does help the build the economy. Amtrak received $1 billion, even though they haven’t turned a profit in 40 years. The National Endowment for the Arts received $50 million. $650 million went to give out digital television conversion coupons. $400 million went to global warming research. $300 million went towards grants to fight domestic violence. There was $89 billion for Medicaid and $20 billion for food stamps. And let’s not forget the $150 million for producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish. How, exactly, will all of those things help to “stimulate” and “revive” the economy? They seem a lot more like a bunch of liberal pet projects to me.

And that was just the first stimulus package, too. I’m not even going into the $410 billion omnibus bill.

Now, Obama and his propagandists in the mainstream media have been selling this $17 billion in budget cuts as if it suddenly proves his fiscal conservatism. He is, after all, cutting money from – gasp! – over 100 programs. He won’t put that $17 billion in context.

But I will.

Make sure to head on over there and read the whole thing!