With the US deficit on course to top one trillion dollars, president-elect Barack Obama Wednesday appointed a veteran management consultant to scour the federal budget for wasteful spending.
Two weeks from his January 20 inauguration, Obama said the appointment of former Treasury official Nancy Killefer as his administration's "chief performance officer" was no cosmetic exercise.
Reiterating that trillion dollar deficits were likely to be "a reality for years to come," Obama pledged to uphold his campaign promise to "scour this budget, line by line, eliminating what we don't need, or what doesn't work."
"That's why the appointment I'm announcing today is among the most important I will make," he told reporters, directing his incoming cabinet to meet early with McKinsey consultant Killefer to get their departmental spending in shape.
Despite his deficit-cutting promises, Obama is pushing an enormous stimulus package through Congress that he said would come to "the high end of our estimates."
Aides have said the recession-fighting package will likely total 775 billion dollars over two years, while economists say it could go as high as 1.2 trillion dollars.
That spending will fuel a deficit that, according to new projections Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office, will reach a record 1.2 trillion dollars in 2008/2009.
"My own economic and budget team projects that, unless we take decisive action, even after our economy pulls out of its slide, trillion dollar deficits will be a reality for years to come," Obama said.
But he said "our problem is not just a deficit of dollars -- it's a deficit of accountability, a deficit of trust," as Killefer promised to conduct a root-and-branch investigation to cut out waste in the budget.
