President-Elect Barack Obama Announces Peter Orszag as Director of Office of Management and Budget

We can't sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists, or interest groups. We simply can't afford it.

This isn't about big government or small government. It's about building a smarter government that focuses on what works. That's why I will ask my team to think anew and act anew to meet our new challenges.

We are going to go through our federal budget -- as I promised during the campaign, page by page, line by line -- eliminating those programs we don't need and insisting that those that we do need operate in a sensible, cost-effective way.

Let me just give you one example of what I'm talking about. There's a report today that, from 2003 to 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff for such subsidies. Now, if this is true -- and this was just a report this morning -- but if it's true, it is a prime example of the kind of waste that I intend to end as president.

We're also going to focus on one of the biggest long-run challenges that our budget faces, namely the rising cost of health care in both the public and private sectors. This is not just a challenge, but also an opportunity to improve the health care that Americans rely on and to bring down the costs that taxpayers, businesses and families have to pay.

Now, that's what the Office of Management and Budget will do in my administration: It will not only help design a budget and manage its implementation, but it's also going to make sure that our government -- your government -- is more efficient and more effective at serving the American people.