House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced today a new program called “YouCut,” which asks the public to vote for one of five spending cuts they'd like to see the government take up. The whole enterprise is designed to promote the Republican narrative that Democrats are profligately spending your tax dollars, whereas the GOP is serious about changing “Washington's culture of spending into a culture of savings.” Already a few media outlets have reported on the initiative, like Politico and The Hill.

Absent from these articles, however, is one key fact that's pretty darn important when assessing the seriousness of Cantor's program -- it would do nothing to control the budget.

Cantor has put up five items for the chopping block: the presidential election fund, “taxpayer subsidized union activities,” a HUD program for doctoral dissertations, welfare spending, and Community Block Development Grant program funding for wealthier neighborhoods.

Remember, Cantor is only asking us to pick one program to cut. But going by his own figures, the combined savings to be had from eliminating all five is about $3.2 billion per year.

The federal budget for fiscal year 2011 is $3.69 trillion, of which Cantor's combined yearly savings represents 0.08 percent.

Seriously, one of the programs Cantor wants to cut -- the HUD subsidies for doctoral dissertations -- amounts to $1 million over five years. When it comes to government spending, that's not even a pittance. Also, the presidential election fund is comprised of voluntary taxpayer contributions. Eliminating it wouldn't so much save the taxpayers' money as it would give them one less place to spend it.

In a BigGovernment.com entry promoting the plan, Cantor asked America to “vote to help us put Uncle Sam on a diet.” What he's really doing is asking us to choose which sesame seed to pick off the Big Mac.