Yes, that was the actual headline from the WSJ’s snark-heavy article on government cost-cutting measures of late. Really, they did all the writing for us. Go on, read it. It’s worth your while. I’ll wait.

There, all done?  Let’s continue. Some of you with longer attention spans may remember way back in March or whatever we called months back then that President Obama had his cabinet find $100m in budget cuts for the current fiscal year, which sounds like a lot until you remember this is the federal government here and that represents only a small drop in the $3t bucket that is the annual budget, give or take. So it should have been easy to have found even that. And it was!

The Justice Department estimates it can save $573,000 through fiscal 2010 by setting up its printers and copiers to use both sides of the paper. By emailing some documents instead of printing them out, the Department of Homeland Security will save $318,000.

A million, right there! The Air Force is pitching in, saving around $52m by just using commercial jet fuel and mixing in additives later rather than buying specially-blended shock and awe fuel. FEMA did the math and realized that selling or re-furbing its emergency trailers instead of throwing them away will save money. And so on, after just a three-month half-assed kind of audit, with a tiny $100m goal. I am about 75% sure there is more wasted spending that can be ferretted out if someone puts their mind to it, which is the next step:

The cost-cutting effort wasn’t a one-off program. This summer, the budget office told each cabinet department to devise a 2011 budget with zero growth, and another with a 5% cut. Before the 2011 budget proposal comes out early next year, the budget office will again go scouting for cost cuts and inefficiencies.

5% might not sound like much, but that comes out to just over $26b of the DoD’s budget alone, and about $41.5b if the whole cabinet cuts 5% from their respective departments. It’s a start, anyway.