In the budget documents released last week, the President proposed some long overdue, common sense cuts to wasteful programs. Of course, making sense and cutting waste don’t always fly in this town. Already, special interests from big agribusiness to defense contractors, are hitting town to defang any attempt at changing the status quo.

Here are some of the best common sense cuts that the President has proposed:

Wasteful Corporate Farm Subsidies – Since the day he named Peter Orszag to be his budget director, President Obama has talked about the enormous subsidies rained down on wealthy farmers. One of the many ways farms receive federal subsidies is through what is called “direct payments.” These payments are strictly based on the amount of land you own that has previously been used for agriculture–you don’t even need to farm to get them.

Direct payments are a relic from farm legislation more than a decade old – and were intended to be temporary to wean farmers from subsidies. Instead, they remain and new subsidies have piled up to join direct payments. The President’s proposal would not allow direct payments to farmers who take in more than $500,000 in revenues, which would save $9.8 billion over 10 years.  Four other specific agriculture subsidy cuts would save $6.2 billion. Already the National Farm Bureau, the Cotton Council and others are rallying forces to oppose the cuts.

Subsidies for Big Oil – The FY10 budget also proposes several smart ways to cut subsidies for the very lucrative oil and gas sectors. Through the elimination of several tax breaks and royalty loopholes, the Administration tallied more than $30 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers. The budget proposed repealing and adjusting a number of oil and gas giveaways. These include longstanding subsidies such as the passive loss exemption for oil and gas properties, the percentage depletion allowance for oil and natural gas, and the expensing of tangible drilling costs. Of course big oil isn’t going to take this sitting down and allied forces in Congress are already railing against any changes.

Cold War Relic Weapons Systems – The President has also pledged to go after as yet unspecified cold war weapon systems that we don’t use or need. At the top of the list should be the F-22 Raptor, a fighter that was designed to take on the next generation of jets the Soviet Union was going to build. But along with his proposals to rein in wasteful contracting practices and reform procurement, we will have to see exactly what the list entails. There are few lobbies that are better funded and connected than the military-industrial complex. Already LockheedMartin has been running ads to inflate the economic impact of the F-22 as a jobs program.

The budget has many other proposed cuts, large and small, but we still wait to see the final details in the full budget. Details on earmark reform, elimination of wasteful subsidies to banks in the student loan program, and other agriculture cuts, are just a few of the proposals we look forward to seeing.

But as many have learned before, what a new administration puts in its budget only matters if it gets written into legislation. And President Obama will have a fight on his hands. With the economy in shambles and enormous budget deficits as far as the eye can see, however, it is a fight worth having. It is, in fact, a fight that must be won.

Taxpayers for Common Sense will certainly be there in the trenches fighting for smart cuts and making government work more effectively, efficiently, and transparently for the American taxpayer.