The New Biden Group

As the bipartisan group of lawmakers being led by Vice President Biden continue to discuss the budget and ways to raise the debt ceiling, it seems the Vice President has gotten himself another fiscal policy-related task: the Campaign to Cut Waste.

In a blog on the White House's website, Vice President Biden announced his leadership role in the new group, whose responsibility would be to--you guessed it--cut wasteful spending. The Obama Administration has taken a number of steps over the past year (most recently here) to try to cut down on wasteful spending, but this seems to be a broader effort than the individual initiatives they've announced previously.

Here is Vice President Biden's take on the new group:

Most of these cuts we’re going to make are small. They won’t close our deficit or solve all of our fiscal problems. However, no amount of waste is acceptable, and these cuts will add up over time. This year alone we’ve found $33 billion in savings, but we know there’s a lot more work to be done.

Any efforts to reduce wasteful or inefficient spending that can lead to savings are worthwhile. There is no reason to continue low-priority or wasteful spending at a time of record deficits, and these types of cuts are even lower than the low-hanging fruit we recently identified.