Obama Should Learn from Socialist Spanish PM

Believe it or not, socialist PM of Spain Jose Luis Zapatero could teach Obama a thing or two about fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Zapatero is taking action to address the root cause of his nation's fiscal dilemma: excess spending. For years, Spain had doled money out of the public purse with such abandon that its deficit reached 11.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2009. Mr. Zapatero will now impose a 5-percent across-the-board reduction in government salaries. Ministers will take a more substantial, but mostly symbolic, 15-percent cut. More importantly, the government will freeze pension benefits and eliminate a number of non-essential benefits. A total of 13,000 unnecessary government employees will be cut loose.

Since the U.S. likely has 8-10x the number of government employees, that would equate to over 100,000 federal employees in the U.S. That would be a great start.