How to cut the budget, for real

As Lane Kirkland, former president of the AFL-CIO, famously declared: “Any jackass can draw up a balanced budget on paper.” Indeed, as the recently announced “Super Committee” begins to look for ways to save $1.5 trillion over the coming decade, it might want to go beyond what theoretically looks good on paper and consider looking at what one Cabinet department actually did to bring its budget under control. Under eight years of leadership by Secretary Elaine L. Chao, the Department of Labor actually cut discretionary spending. And it wasn’t simply a cut in anticipated spending that still leaves actual spending higher than before. The absolute level of spending fell. Discretionary budget authority fell from $12 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $11.8 billion in 2008.