A Philosophy of Cuts

Folks should head on over to read Elizabeth Newell's smart piece on how the Obama administration decided what programs to cut. It's important, I think, because while the Obama team is going to spend a lot of time discussing what the cuts mean, suggesting for example that the eliminations show that they're serious about cutting programs where other administrations just talked the talk, the way they decide what to eliminate is just as consequential in terms of what it says about how the administration will evaluate programs.

For example, anyone who flipped through the booklet of programs to be terminated yesterday might have noticed that the footnotes justifying the cuts looked more like those of a 9th grade social studies paper by a student just learning how to do non-parenthetical citations than a graduate paper, the thick brush of research and explanation we might have expected. Sure, it's a lot of programs, and a couple of months. But there are a lot of good people working on the budget. And a report from the Government Accountability Office doesn't seem like it should be the only thing dooming a program.