Spending is easy. Cutting budgets is near-impossible.

Only hours after President Obama announced “savings” of $17 billion in a $3.4 trillion budget, Congress lined up stop even that drop in a bucket.

Here in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, the head of the Turnpike Authority abruptly resigned from his post yesterday because he couldn’t do the job he was asked to do. The MTA is carrying a $2.4 billion debt so Alan LeBovidge was brought in to cut costs. But when he tried to reduce the MTA’s workforce, his move was blocked:

After being told for more than a year that reducing staff was a priority, he was recently told to hold off on laying off toll-takers, long seen as a symbol of the agency's excessive reliance on expensive labor.

LeBovidge then shut off the lights on the Zakim bridge to save $5000/month but even that minor action was reversed by the Patrick administration. Finally, he refused to pay overtime to fill in for the toll takers who called out sick on Easter resulting in mile-long lines at the tolls. Since he couldn’t make any cuts, the only thing left for Massachusetts to do is (surprise!) raise tolls and taxes.

LeBovidge’s resignation was “effective immediately” and he seemed eager to get to the golf course.

Extra - Another Massachusetts budget priority: free cars!