Open Left

but he's been sending that message

since Iowa. he's promised to "cut wasteful spending" far more times than I care to remember. It was part of his post-partisan sheen. From some of his remarks later last year, I expected a move like this THIS year. Not now, maybe in late spring. But he was definitely going to move toward "deficit reduction" before the midterms. Pelosi apparently just this month put him on notice that, until the senate moves on the backlog of house bills passed, the only measures she would take up are jobs jobs jobs and deficit control.

this is the 2010 budget:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

of course I want the defense budget to shrink by 20% or more. but I can't imagine any president doing that in the middle of two wars that aren't going well.

everything else through Veterans Affairs is off the table. including, according to Bernstein, Education, HHS, and Transportation ($50 billion in infrastructure).

Also not being frozen: Homeland Security, and Energy, given Bernstein's reminder of Obama's great confidence in our coming investment in the new driver and savior of our economy, green energy.

As for the stimulus, it's baked into 2010, and will be spent by the end of the year.

so that leaves these departments as possibly open to being frozen for 3 years at their as yet unannounced 2011 levels:

State (? really?)
HUD
Agriculture
Justice
NASA (outsourcing?)
Commerce
Labor
Treasury
Interior
EPA
SSA (? probably not)
NSF
USACE
National Infrastructure Bank
Corporation for National and Community Service
SBA
GSA
Other Agencies
Off-budget spending ?

Is this terrible? I don't know the answer. But my initial instinct tells me, No.

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by: along @ Mon Jan 25, 2010 at 22:21:55 PM CST