In his State of the Union address tomorrow night President Obama is expected to propose a three-year spending freeze on discretionary spending other than that for national security. Of course that amounts to about $15 billion from next year’s budget and doesn’t even scratch the surface of a more than $1 trillion budget deficit.
It’s a change in strategy for a dismal first year as President. The President himself said he’d rather be a good one-term President than a mediocre two-term President. So, let’s change the agenda.
And, of course, change our mind. This is what Candidate Obama said about a spending freeze:
OBAMA: Well, look, I think that we do have a disagreement about an across-the-board spending freeze. It sounds good. It’s proposed periodically. It doesn’t happen.
And, in fact, an across-the-board spending freeze is a hatchet, and we do need a scalpel, because there are some programs that don’t work at all. There are some programs that are underfunded. And I want to make sure that we are focused on those programs that work.
Candidate Barack Obama in the October, 2008 Presidential Debate
H/T Glenn Thrush at Politico
