Obama to call for five year spending freeze

Obama to call for five year spending freeze


By:CNN White House Correspondent Dan Lothian 

Washington (CNN)– In a move aimed at tackling the bulging federal deficit, a senior administration official said President Obama will call for a "five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending," during his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Sounds good, doesn't it.  So Common Sense thought a bit of fact check might be in order.  The discretionary spending federal budget for FY 2010 was $1.39 trillion, or 38% of total spending.  So the first Common Sense observation is that a significant majority of the federal budget, some 62%, is off the table.  In case you're wondering that includes principally social security, medicare, and medicaid.  Note that I'm not suggesting that these programs should be cut, just pointing out the obvious.

Of the discretionary spending that is on the table, more than half ($844 billion) is security related including DOD and Homeland Security.  What remains, $546 billion or roughly 15% of total federal budget, is what is to be frozen!

Think about that for a bit.  Our elected representatives are going to have a fight over 15% of the total budget.  While you're thinking about it bear in mind that budgeted spending is only a portion of real total spending.

So when the facts are available just how good is a freeze on "non-security discretionary spending?"  Common Sense thinks this is more of the politics of the usual.  It sounds good but doesn't really pass the smell test.