Remember President Obama's New Era of Responsibility? It got off to an inauspicious start, with a $787-billion economic stimulus package, a $410-billion appropriations bill, and a record $1.8-trillion budget deficit.

But now Obama wants to signal that he's getting serious about cutting the federal budget. Unfortunately, his plan hinges on the assumption that Americans do not know how to calculate percentages.

Last week, the Obama administration, after going through the budget "line by line," unveiled $17 billion in budget cuts. That amounts to less than 0.5 percent of the president's proposed $3.6-trillion budget for the next fiscal year and less than 2 percent of the projected $1.3-trillion deficit.

On Monday, the White House raised its estimate of the budget deficit for the current fiscal year from $1.75 trillion to $1.84 trillion. The $89-billion correction was more than five times the cuts Obama had proposed four days before.

The president dismissed critics who were unimpressed by his $17 billion in savings as inside-the-Beltway snobs with no understanding of how regular people view things. "In Washington," he told reporters, "I guess that's considered trivial. Outside of Washington, that's still considered a lot of money."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used the same rhetorical strategy. "I've said this before, and I'll say it again: $17 billion is a lot of money to people in America," he said. "I understand that it might not be to some people in this town, but that's probably why we're sitting on a $12-trillion American Express bill" -- a reference to the national debt. Continued...