“You’re cherry-picking the base of the tree on stuff that is not innovative,” said Paul C. Light, a scholar of federal bureaucracy at New York University. “Purchasing in bulk? Wow, that’s a bold idea! Teleconferencing? Holy moly! None of this stuff is the kind of bold sweep you’re hoping Obama will bring to the management of government.”…

Asked at Monday’s Cabinet meeting whether $100 million is merely a drop in the bucket, Obama said the savings add up.

“None of these things alone are going to make a difference,” he said. “But cumulatively they would make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we’re going to do is line by line, page by page, $100 million there, $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.”

Light countered: “I think it’s more like $100 billion here and $100 billion there adds up to real money.”