the federal bureaucracy, it's reach, regulations, dependants and employees has grown and will continue to...state and local losses account for the "reduction' you point to....
"By many measures, the federal government has indeed grown during Obama's tenure. Spending as a share of the economy has gone up. The number of federal employees has risen. More Americans are relying on federal assistance.
Employees: The number of federal employees grew by 123,000, or 6.2%, under President Obama, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
The federal government has been one of the few areas that's grown during the economic downturn. The private sector remains down 1.1 million jobs from the start of 2009, while state and local governments have shed 635,000 positions."
Did Obama really make government bigger? - Jan. 25, 2012
"But while state and local jobs evaporated, Labor Department statistics show that the federal government , not counting the postal service, has grown by 143,000 employees during Obama’s tenure.
Looking solely at the increase in non-postal-service federal employees during Obama’s tenure, the president has overseen a 5.1 percent increase in size of the federal workforce."
Government Job Loss: President Obama’s Catch 22 - ABC News
and I don't know how much credit you want or should claim for your hero when it comes to reductions in state and local
Plan to cut 15 percent of state workforce sails through committee
Posted by: Baird Helgeson
January 19, 2011 -
Reigniting tensions between Republicans legislators and public employees, a House committee on Wednesday approved a proposal to reduce the state’s workforce by 15 percent.
“This proposal is about more than balancing the budget. It is about balancing government,” said the bill’s author, state Rep. Keith Downey, R-Edina. “For too long, state government has relied on one-time measures and looked the other way to foreboding fiscal crisis. Our state can no longer afford the status quo, and our citizens deserve better.”
Democrats blasted the measure as a ham-handed effort to cut state workers without ushering in any reform to make government work better. They called it “economic suicide” in a struggling economy to eliminate 5,000 workers.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/114219459.html