Obama to convene cabinet meeting to cut govt spending

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WASHINGTON, April 19 (AFP): US President Barack Obama, faced with mushrooming budget deficits, announced he will convene his first full cabinet meeting Monday and ask his secretaries for specific plans to cut spending.
He also added to his administration two new officials, Jeffrey Zients and Aneesh Chopra, whose task will be to streamline processes, cut costs and make the government more efficient.
"And this Monday, at my first, full cabinet meeting, I will ask all of my department and agency heads for specific proposals for cutting their budgets," Obama said in his weekly radio address Saturday.
The announcements came after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast last month the budget deficit could hit 1.845 trillion dollars for the whole year based on Obama's 3.5-trillion-dollar budget plan approved by Congress early this month.
The CBO said its budget deficit estimate for fiscal 2009, which ends on September 30, would be four times the 2008 record shortfall and amount to 13.1 percent of the country's total economic output.