Spending Freeze to be based on the 2010 Obama budget...and so,

[FrenchieCat]

I'm trying to figure out if that's a truly bad thing, as some have intonated,
without really telling us anything more than that isn't what we want.

What we know and what we don't know.

My understanding is that this spending freeze will deal with budgetary areas
that are neither mandatory spending nor defense related.

In addition, it is supposed to be flexible within each departments,
and maybe even broader than that (we don't totally know), like flexible overall.

In either case, back in February of 2009, what we do know is that
the 2010 budget was heralded as clearly showing exactly the right progressive priorities,
by just about every progressive economist out there.
They loved it.

and even we loved it.....that I clearly remember (it was only a year ago after all)

February 27, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist

Climate of Change
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Paul Krugman praises President Obama's new budget proposal
By John Amato Saturday Feb 28, 2009 7:00pm

Paul Krugman's latest column praises President Obama's new budget big-time. I haven't seen Paul that excited in a long while.
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/paul-krugman-praised-president-obamas-n

and Krugman wasn't the only excited one.

I even recall clearly that the budget was the saving grace
of the stimulus package, which many criticized as too small.

In contrast the 2010 budget increased spending by 8% for Bush's prior 2009 budget,
and made the increases in all of the right places.


So I'm trying to figure out, is it automatically bad news to freeze
to 2010 levels?

And if so, why do you think this?


See for yourself,

The + or - sign next to each department is how much
the Budget for that department grew or shrank
going from Bush to Obama in terms of priority.....

Now, do you notice anything?


$78.7 billion (-1.7%) - Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) - Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) - Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) - Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) - Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) - Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (-0.4%) - Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) - Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (-6.3%) - Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) - Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) - Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) - Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) - Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) - Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) - Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) - National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (-3.8%) - Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%) - National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) - Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) - Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (-14.3%) - General Services Administration
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) - Other Agencies
$105 billion - Other
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget


So please before we pass judgment, let's think about this,
wait for some details, and make sure we know what we are talking about.
let's be intelligent about our discussion on this ....
because it may not be what you think it is.

[Skink]

1. Could just be part of paygo.

Probably has nothing to do with future stimulus.

[Clio the Leo]

3. Jarred Bernstein said as much on Rachel tonight....

... "this will not apply to the stimulus."

[Clio the Leo]

2. We're DEMOCRATS!!! WE SPEND MONEY!!!!

.... that's what we do!!!! lol

The Republicans make wars! We spend money! It's a tried and true formula, why he gotta mess it up!!!

This was NOT the change I was expecting when I read in "Audacity" about how Clinton created a budget surplus by doing THIS VERY THING!!!!

AHHHHH!!!!!!!!

:)

[FrenchieCat]

4. It would be one thing if the budget freeze was based on a Bush budget,

but it won't be.

[Clio the Leo]

5. Oh! Quit applying complex thought....

.... you're just making things more difficult. :)

Instead do this --> FREEZE BAD!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!

[FrenchieCat]

6. Wouldn't that just make us look stupid,

just to be against something
without really knowing what we are against?

Isn't that what Teabaggers do?

[Clio the Leo]

7. Ha! NT

[FrenchieCat]

8. Folks unrecc'ing this don't want folks to know

based on actual information whether to be for or against this, I guess.

Anytime a fact based OP is unre'ced on a progressive site,
it makes things quite frightening as to the type of folks
one is really dealing with.

[cali]

9. Why won't he even consider cutting defense?

there's a lot of waste there.

[FrenchieCat]

10. We have two wars going on,

and a dissimated army.

I think that is why.



did you see the increase in Veteran affairs
in the 2010 Budget that will be the basis for the freeze?

$52.5 billion (+10.3%) - Department of Veterans Affairs

[cali]

11. let me repeat: there's a lot of waste and redundancy in defense

things like headstart will be cut.

[FrenchieCat]

12. Why will things like Headstart be cut?

Where did you hear that?

How does a flexible freeze of spending
CUT headstart?

Please explain.

[Hello_Kitty]

52. If there's a spending freeze with an increase in enrollment, it becomes a cut.

Either less money is spent per child or a cap is put on the number of children accepted into the program. Assuming Head Start would be one of the programs affected, that is.

[Igel]

50. It may be.

This is political speak. Just because he says X doesn't mean that Y isn't also on the table.

In this case, saying certain non-military discretionary spending will be capped says nothing about other categories of spending.

It's like my asking, "Cali, I need $5. Do you have $5?" If you have $6 and said, "I have $3," you'd be substituting incomplete true information as the answer for my question and leaving out relevant information. That's typically considered deceitful; perhaps you don't know about that $5 bill in the bottom of your purse, in which case it's not deceitful. (If I asked, "Who has $3?" and you said, "I have $3" yet had $6, that's not deceitful--the answer satisfies relevance requirements. That you have more is irrelevant.)

In legal speech, all that matters is that the sentence have some sense in which it is true. If you have $6 you certainly have $3. Obama didn't mention other programs; he's said nothing other programs and no conversational implicature regarding those programs is to be drawn.

Moreover, there's also no commitment to actually veto any bill failing to cap those categories of spending. He's called for a cap. He hasn't required it, except possibly of himself. If he's ignored, well, he issued the call, his butt's been armored. Even if he issues a budget that's obviously incomplete and he knows that Congress will increase things willy-nilly, he's in the clear.

[ShortnFiery]

13. The BIG BUCKS isn't being spent on the troops but for the pretty armaments and weapons.

Weapons of Death and Destruction ... on our Taxpayer dime+

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

45. It doesn't say that he won't consider cutting defense....

Just the Defense is exempted from the freeze. If Obama and Congress can cut some weapons systems that even the military agrees that it doesn't need, the Defense budget might be cut as well.

I think this is largely a symbolic move. In the current climate, can you imagine the Republicans' reaction if Obama froze military spending. He's a Foreigner! He hates our troops! I think we can pretty much imagine it.

[Thrill]

14. I'm sorry but, these aren't Progressive or Democratic Policies

Huge increases in Defense budgets. And Cutting of Domestic Programs Budgets?

These are Republican ideas and tactics. Anyway people try to cut it. This is Reaganomics.

Word of advice to Democrats and Pres. Obama. No matter how much you try to govern like you care about the deficit. Republicans are still going to call you big spenders, so stop trying to cater to them.

I'm so finished with politics.

[Clio the Leo]

15. What did you think when he proposed doing this in "Audacity"?

And I dont mean to pick on you .... that question is open to all.

[FrenchieCat]

16. Name the cuts!

A freeze is not a cut....especially after an 8% increase over the prior budget.

I'm starting to believe that folks are talking out of their asses.
I really I'm.

and that's quite disappointing.
I thought DU was full of knowledgeable folks
who could actually provide some facts, some evidence
with their whine...but apparently that's not required.

[Igel]

51. It's all still too vague to.

The assumption seems to be that by freezing the budget inflation will effectively reduce the scope of programs.

There are lots of assumptions there. That the budget has each line item frozen, for instance, so funding within a category or within the overall "non-military discretionary budget" can't be shifted. That Congress won't ignore the call and Obama sign the budget the Congress approves.

Then again, I don't know how many times we've been told that decreases to planned increases in a budget are actual cuts, that when taxes revert to former levels automatically that can't count as a tax increase whatever actually happens to the tax rate, and so many other things that implicitly and outrageously confuse words for things and framing for reality that it's not surprising that unfounded assumptions about how a vague call will be executed are taken as required cuts that will certainly be implemented.

[Autumn]

19. Tell me, does your

head feel wet? Is it cool or warm? I can tell the difference between rain and piss "trickling" down. Deja vu?

[FrenchieCat]

20. I don't even understand why being mad is so paramount around here.

[Autumn]

21. Then don't be mad if it

bothers you so much. It's a total waste of time to get mad about politics as usual.

[FrenchieCat]

22. How is this politics as usual?

I am missing something?

Why is a freeze a bad thing,
and if it isn't why is any of it bad?

I don't get this sense of doom about everything,
without folks explaining themselves better.

Reactions around here by some make no sense to me.....

[Autumn]

24. Maybe you are missing something,

it makes sense to me. People are hurting,and they are going to freeze spending on whatever they can EXCEPT for defense spending. I'm not here to explain anything to you, I am voicing my opinion. We have been here before.

[FrenchieCat]

26. Sorry, I'm simply amazed......

how the lack of any political awareness around here.

I truly am.

[Autumn]

28. Well I actually agree with

you on that. I truly do.

[Phx_Dem]

47. +1. They've squeezed themselves into a tiny little box that does

not allow for any movement whatsoever.

They can't even tell you what programs will be impacted, yet they're pissed. Talk about being blindly ideological and myopic! Or maybe ignorant is a better description.

[backscatter712]

17. Economically, the jury's still out with me. Politically, it's utter shit.

I've heard arguments on both sides, be they the "It's Roosevelt in '37 all over again!" to "It looks bad, but actually isn't - it's actually smart financing." The problem is that it looks bad, whether it is or isn't actually bad. Just about everyone's heard the Keynesian adage that you don't cut .gov spending in the middle of a recession. In that context, this makes Obama look completely clueless, and will cause even more defections and loss of enthusiasm from his base. At the minimum, he could have come up with better framing, or just buried these cuts in the fine print of next year's budget to hope that nobody'd notice.

[FrenchieCat]

18. It looks bad because we are not smart enough to realize what it even is......

Hence, the SOTU will provide more information.

[donheld]

23. Does this mean I don't get a pony?

[Autumn]

25. No, you don't get

a pony,they cost a lot to feed. Hay gets expensive not to mention grain and supplements.

[FrenchieCat]

27. You weren't ever promised one.....

so looks like it means what he said.

[donheld]

29. He said I was getting a lot of things I'm not getting now too.

[FrenchieCat]

33. well thank goodness he still has 75% of his time alotted to get that done

[kiva]

30. Unemployment is officially at about 10%, though we all

know that figure is deceptively low. As many DUers have pointed out, a New Deal style of government spending programs could provide jobs while we repair our infrastructure, expand our commitment to green energy, modernized our transportation system, and improve our schools. All of this requires investment, and a freeze isn't the answer.

To add insult to injury, military spending wouldn't be frozen - so we can tell the millions of unemployed Americans "Hey, we still have the coolest weapons" - I'm sure they'll be impressed.

I don't know if this will come to pass - it could be a rumor or a trial balloon - but if that's what Obama plans to do, realize that he will lose any remaining credibility as an agent of change, and he (and our party) will pay the price at the polls.

[FrenchieCat]

31. They've got the TARP money and we are getting paid back......

and they have already indicated that they will use this money.

The spending freeze has to do directly with the budget.

I wish folks would think more critically....
I thought that this community was smarter than this,
but I'm starting to realize that being under Bush for 8 years
did the trick, and that it took little thought to be critical
against Bush, because everything he did was fucked up.
This ain't the same guy, yet the reactions are generally the same,
and I think that many of us don't believe a little thinking is required....
we just want to hear what we want, and want what we want,
and if it doesn't show up the way that we have decided it should,
as we did for Bush, we simply get outrage.

Guess we are gonna have to become a bit smarter.....
cause I don't want to be dumber than the Republicans,
and to some extent that's what it is starting to feel like.

[kiva]

35. Let me get this straight...

you are arguing for critical thinking? :rofl: Critical thinking requires that you look at a situation objectively, and you have proved over and over that you have no objectivity about President Obama.

And a hint - if you really are interested in persuading people, calling them 'dumb' is probably not a good way to begin.

[FrenchieCat]

37. What does this have to do with a Freeze based the wonderful 2010 budget that was passed last year?

Cause that's what I'm talking about. That's what critical thinking on the issues mean.
Doesn't mean dissing folks specifically, but in general, even this post of yours
is quite high schoolish.

[kiva]

41. This has to do with the fact that anything proposed by this administration

meets with your approval. You say 'they' have said they would use the TARP funds and repayments, but for what? To fund budget shortfalls? To help fund health insurance reform? I don't know who you mean nor what you think the money will fund, because you were not clear about that part; you were clear, however, with your insults.

Your posts to those who disagree with you are sugar-coated bits of venom - insults covered with denials that you are insulting anyone, just some nebulous folks who might be stupid. An interesting way to stay within DU rules, but not really very subtle.

[FrenchieCat]

44. Here.....on TARP...

The House and Senate appear to be on a collision course about how to pay for a new jobs bill (aka a stimulus bill). The issue? Whether Congress can pay for new jobs programs by cutting back on TARP.

The House embraced that approach in the bill it passed before Christmas. That bill–H.R. 2847, the Jobs for Main Street Act–would cut TARP authority by $150 billion.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7_____en&q=tarp,+85+billion,+jobs.+congress,+2010,+january&start=30&sa=N


The House-passed $174 billion stimulus package faces a stern test in the Senate, in part because it is financed with deficit spending.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2010/01/22/defiant-obama-urges-congress-to-pass-jobs-bill.html

Jobs bill in Congress could bring more roads, transit money to Oregon
By Dylan Rivera, The Oregonian
January 10, 2010, 8:05PM

The "Jobs for Main Street Act" would spend $174 billion in dozens of government programs. The bill, which the House of Representatives passed last month, could have its biggest impact on transportation, where about a fifth of the money would be spent. The Oregon Department of Transportation would get about $332 million and TriMet about $42 million, according to federal formulas.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/01/jobs_bill_in_congress_could_br/2770/comments-newest.html

[Autumn]

32. We can tell the millions of unemployed Americans

and young people on minimum wage "Hey, we still have the coolest weapons" and its a JOB. Good post.

[FrenchieCat]

34. Did Obama run saying he would cut defense?

Did Hillary?

I think only Kucinich did.

[Autumn]

36. I forget ,

as of January 2009 the wars and a overly large defense spending budget became the "right thing to do." Got to remember Bush wars= BAD Obama wars=good :eyes: Say what you want, he said a lot of stuff, some of that has changed since he has been in office. Politics as usual.

[FrenchieCat]

38. You would have remembered, if he would have said it......

You'd probably be coming back with a Youtube video as proof. :rofl:

[Autumn]

39. Ahh Frenchy you are such a fierce advocate

for Obama, I truly hope he appreciates you. edited to add. I really need to learn how to post videos and stuff like that. I think I'll look it up and try that some time.

[FrenchieCat]

40. Cool.

Look, I just think we need to think harder sometimes.

It is because I am a positive advocate that I do just that....
I'm don't post to tear down anyone....
that's not what makes me wake up every morning.....
I actually think about the things I say.....
I'm not here to be gloomed and doomed to death,
I have posted here all of this time, because I have always had hope,
and I have more the ever now....
I have always believed in the best about folks,
not the worse (except for GWB, I knew he was fucked up from the get go).

I think it will be alright.
I just do.

Now, in reference to the SCOTUS ruling,
well, see that's a different matter.
That's some shit, and I hope there will be a unified strategy
to fight that shit.

[Autumn]

42. I'm an old woman and this

isn't my first rodeo. A lot of us Do think hard, and we don't like some of the direction he is taking.We have the right to say so, we earned that right when we voted for him. Maybe you are young, and well off and can afford to wait on hope, others can't. A hell of a lot of people are at the end of their ropes,and they are pissed off, and they have a right to be.You go on ahead and you believe the best about your politicians and the party, some of us have been around the block a time or two. Am I cynical? Hell yes. Am I tearing Obama down? No. But by God when he pisses me off I will say so. He needs to dance with the ones who brung him and forget about those other pretty faces. Say what you want Frenchie, I smell Reaganomics. Been there, done that.

[kiva]

43. Thank you, and compliments on your

warm or cool post above - concise, with a nice bite.

[MadHound]

46. Until defense spending is put on the chopping block, first and foremost

These spending cuts are nothing less than a betrayal of the people of this country. We are now heading down the same path that the Soviet Union went, sacrificing our people on the altar of war. Is that the course you want to pursue?

If we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, which would should do as a matter of smart foreign policy and common sense, we could easily cut our defense spending in half and still retain the best, most overwhelming military force in the world.

But instead it looks like this administration is going to impoverish more and more people while the MIC gets richer.

[TheKentuckian]

48. If there is waste or redundancy it is great to find it but those resources

should be redirected and put into the economy. Our traditional infrastructure is on the verge of collapse with only a drop in the bucket invested so far. Our 100+ year old sewer system is about done. There has been spending on renewable energy at long last but it is still a canary in a coal mine in regards of how far we have to go to make the transition.

It's not like we don't have crucial places for every dime to be spent and therefore continue to drive some missing demand from the private sector.
Not to mention that people are struggling and all the time people's unemployment benefits run out, more and more need food and shelter, and people on fixed incomes have seen them become even more fixed.

The deficit obviously needs addressing but until we are having some real growth on Main Street and substantial increase in private demand, I think most people with sense would keep as much wood as they can muster in the fire.

Are right wing economist not almost always wrong? What makes anyone think that this time for some reason that it is time to pull the parachute? Nobody else that has been reasonably sane with any foresight sees this as wise, it is the same dummies that brought us here that are applauding.

Less is less. Any fat should be re-purposed into programs with a greater multiplier effect or put into R&D that might lead to something to grow on instead of as a publicity stunt that feeds into failed philosophies that also can't help but to take resources out of a system with no other source of demand.

[Jennicut]

49. People just jump all over it before they even know all the facts.

Really, as a liberal I hate that we are so reactionary to every little thing before we know all the details. Please look at my post Frenchie about what Matthew Yglesias has to say about this.