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Obama criticizes government waste -- and Congress

President Obama amped up his battle with congressional Republicans today by declaring a war on government swag.
"Promotional items" -- such as the T-shirts, coffee mugs, and ink pens that federal officials hand out to promote their departments -- are one of the targets of new Obama executive orders targeting government waste.
In signing the orders directing federal agencies to cut wasteful spending by 20% today, Obama also took a swipe at Congress.
"We haven't seen as much action out of Congress as we'd like, and that's why we launched on our own initiative the campaign to cut waste," Obama said before signing an executive order in the Oval Office. "Not just to cut spending, but to make government work better for the American people."
The executive orders that Obama signed today targets five areas: Travel, technology, printing, and vehicles as well as promotional items.
"We don't need to wait for Congress in order to do something about wasteful spending that's out there," Obama said. "Cutting waste, making government more efficient is something that leaders in both parties have worked on, from Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican, to Democrat Claire McCaskill."
The White House cast the new cut-waste orders as part of Obama's "We Can't Wait" campaign, designed to stress executive action at a time of congressional impasses over jobs and debt legislation.
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, said Obama has contributed more than his share of wasteful government spending.
"It wasn't Republicans in Congress that forced through his stimulus, a nearly trillion dollar bill that leaves taxpayers paying an average of $100 million a day, every day, just to pay the interest on the debt caused by that one bill alone," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
"I guess when you're throwing money at bankrupt solar companies, you need to do something to distract the White House press corps," Stewart added,

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