WASHINGTON — President Obama has said for weeks that his staff is scouring the federal budget, "line by line," for savings. Today, they will release the results: a plan to trim 121 programs by $17 billion, a tiny fraction of next year's $3.4 trillion budget.

The plan is less ambitious than the hit list former president George W. Bush produced last year, targeting 151 programs for $34 billion in savings. And, like most of the cuts Bush sought, congressional sources and independent budget analysts yesterday predicted that Obama's would be a tough sell.

"Even if you got all of those things, it would be saving pennies, not dollars. And you're not going to begin to get all of them," said Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings Institution economist who waged her own battles with Congress as an official in the Clinton White House budget office. "This is a good government exercise without much prospect of putting a significant dent in spending."

Administration officials defended their approach, saying the list of program reductions and terminations is just the start of a broader effort to cut spending and rein in a skyrocketing budget deficit, which is projected to approach $1.7 trillion this year. They also noted that the list does not include more than $300 billion in savings Obama proposes to squeeze from federal health programs and use to finance an expansion of health coverage for the uninsured.

The president already has scored a victory on the budget. Congress last week decisively approved his request to devote billions of dollars in new spending to healthcare, energy and education in the fiscal year that begins in October. That plan depends in part on the administration's ability to identify budget cuts elsewhere. The document being released today details some of those savings.

The proposed program cuts drew fire from Republicans who learned of them yesterday.

"While we appreciate the newfound attention to saving taxpayer dollars from this administration, we respectfully suggest that we should do far more," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.