Obama convenes first cabinet meeting, asks for cuts

President Obama convened his first cabinet meeting today, making headlines by asking for his cabinet heads to cut $100 million dollars in programs they see as wasteful or not working, holding up to his campaign pledge to go "line by line" through the federal budget.
The move is largely symbolic, as this amount adds up to not even a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being funneled into failing banks, industry and the faltering economy.
Obama has already received criticism from the right, who laud his efforts to cut spending in these departments, but feel it's absurd to think that these cuts will have any long term effect on the federal deficit which they say will be doubled or tripled over the next ten years due to his ambitious spending plans.
But the American people are hungry for action, and given that Obama's 100 day sprint is nearly over and the glacial pace of congress will continue to slog away as his huge plans will now be hashed and debated through the legislative process and announcements like today may be looked on very favorably by the nation as a whole.