In his final public speech as White House budget director Wednesday, Peter Orszag defended the Obama administration's record of cutting spending and using technology to make government run better.

"In too many cases, the government spends money not out of need, but out of inertia," Orszag told a standing-room only crowd at the Brookings Institution, the think tank where he once worked. "Allowing this to continue would be an abdication of our responsibility as policymakers."

He reeled off more than a dozen management initiatives and accomplishments, ranging from cancellation of the F-22 fighter jet to using federal buying power to save an anticipated $200 million on office supplies over four years.

"That's an awful lot of pencils," he said.

He highlighted the Obama's administration's focus on making more effective use of technology. Besides freezing future investment on financial management information technology projects, those include an online tracking system for visa and citizenship applications, together with the recent addition of mobile phone apps to USA.gov, the federal government's portal web site.

"We have this information and it's the responsibility of government to deploy it in a way convenient and helpful to the American public," he said.

Orszag steps down Friday as Office of Management and Budget director to take a position as a distinguished visiting fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. President Obama has tapped Jacob Lew, who served as OMB director from 1998 to 2001 under the Clinton administration, to take his place.

Orszag defended the costly stimulus package, saying that the economy would have fared far worse without it. He also portrayed the health care overhaul as a serious attempt to confront rising medical costs. He also cautioned against cutting the federal budget deficit too deeply while the economy remains weak.