The president is proposing a partial budget freeze that saves $250 billion over a decade. At least from the August 2009 CBO estimate, total outlays for 2010-2019 are $41,314 billion. That comes out to about 0.6% reduction in spending over a decade, and in the early years about $10-15 billion per year. (There's a new long-term budget due this week, I think. Doubt it makes much difference.)

And somehow Sen. Evan Bayh is happy?

�The president can say in this State of the Union address, �I�m going to include in my budget a freeze on discretionary spending, I�m drawing a line in the sand, and I�m going to use my veto pen to enforce that,�� Bayh said in an interview on Bloomberg Television�s Political Capital with Al Hunt.

The president, of course, won't even be there to enforce the latter parts of this agreement. And it would be dwarfed in the out-years by the planned spending from health care.

Labels: economics, it's the spending stupid, Obama