US President Barack Obama has asked Congress to eliminate or trim 121 federal programmes, for a savings of 17 billion US dollars in the coming budget year.
Obama said "none of the cuts will be easy". He said Americans are tightening their belts in these difficult times, and they want to know if Washington "is prepared to act with the same sense of responsibility". But the proposals which were identified by the White House as wasteful or unnecessary, amount to only one-half of 1 percent of the President's proposed budget. And many of the proposed cuts have already been rejected by Obama's allies in Congress.
(CCTV May 8, 2009)