Rashomon 6: Ten views of Obama’s budget freeze

Bito – I love this one…………………

Gretel, Totaly agree with you! they only ones that are talking about an

Two points:
First, conservatives continue to demean themselves by making a comment about Obama’s decision to freeze spending, and then qualify it with “McCain already said that”, so pathetic.

Second, NPR reported that the Whitehouse said there would be no cuts that would negatively affect the economic growth of the nation, doesn’t that seem to be, a Duh!

According to ABC news, these areas will not be affected by Obama’s spending freeze

1. Social Security
2. Medicare
3.Homeland Security
4. Veteran’s Administration
5. Defense

These areas will be affected

1. Air traffic control
2. National Parks
3. Farm Subsidies
4. Education
5. More..

It remains to be seen exactly how these areas will be affected.

Candidate Obama criticized McCain

Shhhhh!

Don’t tell Republicans about Monday night’s Rachel Maddow Show, where progressive economist Jared Bernstein, who works for Vice President Joe Biden, reassured Maddow that the controversial “spending freeze” the Obama administration just leaked wouldn’t apply to many important social programs, at all.

And do they think all Republicans are stupid and/or completely cut off from the liberal blogosphere, so they won’t learn that this is just a pretend freeze, that will let Democrats grow social spending for their priorities? Bernstein said it would let Obama cut “wasteful spending” and thwart the lobbyists who defend every imaginable government program. Really? If everyone knows the freeze isn’t real, and it’s just about proving your program is important to the recovery or health care or some other protected priority, it will be a lobbyists’ free for all anyway.

http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/01/25/faux_freeze

This is a really complicated issue, too. Because the conventional answer to unemployment is to increase spending. Obama is going to get a lot of criticism from the left on this one.

It’s an interesting idea, though — from an economic standpoint — to target spending freezes in order to increase other parts of the budget. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that proposed before.

Paul Krugman is not happy, but he adds this ray of hope to an otherwise scathing editorial:

Now, I still cling to a fantasy: maybe, just possibly, Obama is going to tie his spending freeze to something that would actually help the economy, like an employment tax credit. (No, trivial tax breaks don

CAF leaders try to escape the box by arguing that deficit reduction should be “long-term” — but that we need more “up-front” spending, stimulus and investment for now. But Social Security’s enemies are playing for the long term. So long as they can put Social Security and Medicare on the path to destruction over time, they’ll be happy — and quite willing to make some “short-term” concessions to reach that goal.

Yes, we must defend Social Security and Medicare from Wall Street and its political agents — which now, sadly, include the Obama White House. But we’ll lose on that — and everything else — if we start by giving up the fight for an aggressive, effective, sustained and long-range economic recovery program, deficits and all.

http://www.alternet.org/news/145401/why_progressives_shouldn%27t_fall_for_the_deficit_reduction_trap

It is the growth in the so-called entitlement programs

Thanks escribacat for posting this! So how are the teabaggers going to respond to this latest development? Are they going to rally and say they are tired of government freezes?

Has Obama has effectively silenced the teabag noise machine by removing one of their primary trump cards? He has spoken forcefully against the supreme court ruling and vowed to challenge them, he has increased spending for working/middle-class families and proposed to decrease spending in other areas. So what are the teabaggers going to complain about? Geitner? Bernanke? Well I think that’s AH’s domain!!

9/10 comments were also Obame=Bush in orientation…

Thanks e’cat! This is great! I listened to Biden’s economics person (missed his name) and realized that Obama is about to give us that great cost-cutting and revenue-shifting scene from “Dave”. (Every real progressive’s dream scene.) He will cut programs that are not working and that soothe the savage heart of only corporate lobbyists. He will then focus on spending around programs that build the economy and shore up the working and middle class people. He’s already anchored programs for the poor that have protected over 3 million people just here in CA.

I am so sick of phony progressives! Left or Right, all this nation knows how to do is whine. HuffPo is the worst of the lot. She doesn’t have a clue what the President will say tomorrow night, but let’s slam him just for the hell of it. I’m done with her.

She is the reason we have Arnold. In the debate before he got elected the first time, he was asked what he would do about the sudden massive shortfall in the CA budget – and before he was forced to answer, to prove he had not a clue – she butted in making derisive comments to and about him, and he never EVER answered the question. She handed the election to him right there. Many of us watching knew it right then, and we’ve never forgiven her for her arrogant stupidity.