Obama's walk not matching his talk

President Obama stressed the importance of "ensuring that our government serves as a responsible steward for the tax dollars of the American people" while signing the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act into law. We couldn't agree more but it is doubtful that the Obama administration will apply this mantra of responsibility to spending that can have a real, sizable impact on our current deficit. Spending that includes billions on foreign wars, over-reaching health care legislation, "stimulus" packages for irresponsible corporations, seemingly never-ending unemployment benefits, and much much more.

Bloomberg.com details the cuts that the law will enact:

"President Barack Obama will sign legislation today to limit erroneous payments by the government and announce a new goal of reducing improper payments by $50 billion before 2012, a White House official said.

The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act will help limit improper payments to individuals, organizations and contractors, according to the administration official. The White House said that in 2009 a record of almost $110 billion was paid by the government to the wrong person, in the wrong amount or for the wrong reasons.

The law is intended to create ways to recover improper payments, allow the recovered funds to be used to improve financial management, and ensure that agencies comply with the law.

In the past three years the government paid benefits totaling more than $180 million to approximately 20,000 Americans who had died, according to the statement. More than $230 million in benefits were paid to about 14,000 fugitives or people in jail who were ineligible for them, the release said."