President Obama discusses both the current need to stimulate the economy as well as the long term need to show fiscal discipline by examining every part of the budget in every department. One of the more interesting pieces of this address is the idea to hear from the workforce itself to find new and improved things that work. By "looking for ideas from the bottom up", Obama is acknowledging that the people that do the daily business in these programs know best how to make those programs more efficient and cost effective.
From the White House Blog:
Listing off several specific changes he intends to bring, he describes his guiding principle: "To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent."
