If I was President, I would gather up a nice, long, broad, fair-minded, and downright ruthlessly non-porky list of stuff that needed to be cut. I would publicize it everywhere, with dollar amounts attached. I would relate it to the peeps by assigning a per-taxpayer dollar value to the total of the cuts. I would stick them into my proposed budget. And when congress weenied out and didn't accept my cuts, I would make a speech in prime time, effectively saying, "Congress, you suck," and go over all my talking points about how the government refuses to use the people's money wisely.
The congressional leaders of the opposition party (whether minority or not), would likely come out and accuse me of not being willing to work with congress, divider instead of uniter, cry cry cry, wah wah wah.
To which, I would address the American people and say, "make your choice. Spend money wisely, or spend money foolishly. Write your elected representatives Or better yet, go to my website at
www.spendwisely.org and send them a message."