State of the Union

Liberals Cool on Obama's Freeze

To limit discretionary spending.

President Obama’s next attempt to win over centrists—he is expected to call for a freeze on non-security discretionary spending on Wednesday night—has some experts balking. Brad DeLong calls the president “Barack Herbert Hoover Obama” and points out that, in 2011, Obama’s plan will lower GDP by $35 billion and cost the economy 350,000 jobs. Robert Reich writes, “A pending freeze will make it even harder to get jobs back because government is the last spender around.” Nate Silver, meanwhile, calls it “a mistake on par with John McCain's ‘suspending my campaign’ gaffe,” saying, “In the medium run, it's most likely effect is to confuse voters, and in the long run, it'll probably either be forgotten about or become Another Broken Promise.”