Cheney: Obama playing 'small ball' on entitlements

Dick Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States, this week told advisers that his biggest concern about the current administration is that it isn't doing enough to cut entitlement spending, which he said is causing the deficit to grow out of control. “Obama is playing small ball,” Mr. Cheney said at the TD Ameritrade Institutional conference in Orlando. Mr. Cheney said he was disappointed that the president didn't mention the growing entitlement spending in his most recent State of the Union speech. “This administration has no plan to cut entitlements, so they're going to take a big cut out of defense instead.” Entitlements currently make up about 20% of government spending and are growing rapidly, Mr. Cheney said. Mr. Cheney did have some praise for the Obama administration. He said he was impressed by the use of drones to kill terrorists. Mr. Cheney even recalled using unmanned drones during his time in government, but they hadn't attached Hellfire missiles at the time. Mr. Cheney was at home when he found out that Osama Bin Laden was killed. Mr. Cheney said he was “delighted” by the news but was disappointed that president Obama didn't thank George Bush for training the Navy Seals that carried out the mission. “They weren't recruited that day,” he said.