Getting Out In Front Of The GOP Budget Knife

By Charles S. Clark

"The easy cuts are behind us," wrote Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew in a Saturday op-ed in The New York Times.

In what might be seen as a bid to model the self-sacrificing behavior the Obama White House would like to see from Republicans, Lew offered three specific program cuts in the spirit of a need to "look beyond the obvious and cut spending for purposes we support. We had to choose programs that, absent the fiscal situation, we would not cut," he wrote.

The three programs on the hook? Community service block grants (so dear to the president from his days as a community organizer), to save $350 million; the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, to save $125 million; and community development block grants, to save $300 million. A journey of a thousand miles begins...