Obama's Spending Freeze

From the New York Times:

President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.

The officials said the proposal would be a major component both of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address on Wednesday and of the budget he will send to Congress on Monday for the fiscal year that begins in October.

The freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks.

But it would exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.

...Administration officials also are working with Congress on roughly $150 billion in additional stimulus spending and tax cuts to spur job creation. But much of that spending would be authorized in the current fiscal year, the officials said, so it would not be affected by the proposed freeze that would take effect in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Stuart Varney explains that Obama's freeze is "a political response to an economic problem."



Not only does this freeze amount to just a drop in the bucket, what are the odds that Obama will deliver on this promise?

Over a year ago, Obama issued the executive order to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

Sec. 3. Closure of Detention Facilities at Guantánamo. The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order. If any individuals covered by this order remain in detention at Guantánamo at the time of closure of those detention facilities, they shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

Obama issued the executive order on January 22, 2009.

I think Gitmo is still up and running, isn't it?

I can't wait for that spending freeze to take effect, the very sort that he opposed during the campaign.



C-SPAN cameras opening health care talks to the public, Gitmo closed in one year, no spending freezes--

Don't bother to read Obama's lips.
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