CRI听力：Obama Asks Cabinet to Cut Spending

He said there's a "confidence gap" that he needs to overcome.

Just back from a Latin America summit, Obama told the first formal Cabinet meeting of his administration that vast spending to combat the economic crisis was "the right thing to do."(www.hXen.com)

But he also said taxpayers still need to know that every dollar they give the government is being spent wisely.

"We also have a deficit -- a confidence gap when it comes to the American people. And we've got to earn their trust. They've got to feel confident that their dollars are being spent wisely and I have every confidence that the team that I put together is going to be able to deliver on that efficiency and productivity in the weeks, months, and years to come."

However, official figures show that the deficit in the annual budget is currently in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

In February, Obama brought forward a 3.6 trillion US dollar budget for the 2010 fiscal year, beginning October 1.

It is a proposal that would produce almost 10 trillion US dollars in deficits over the next decade.