Obama on spending freeze

Tomorrow night, the President of the United States is going to stand in the well of the House of Representatives and make a campaign plea for Democrats in the 2010 elections. This plea will be called the "State of the Union" address, and will be filled with the kind of lies and blame-shifting and vapid, inane rhetorical flourishes that have characterized all of this President's communications. Amidst all of the political lies, he is, according to various reports, going to propose a three-year spending freeze. I don't want to evaluate that particular proposal right now - obviously, freezing spending is better than increasing it, but not as good as cutting it, and the devil's always in the details on something like that.

But this video should be kept in mind whenever he talks about a spending freeze. The media should bracket any Obama mentions of a spending freeze with it.

Yes, we may have to cut some spending, although I disagree with Senator McCain about an across-the-board freeze. That's an example of an unfair burden-sharing. That's using a hatchet to cut the federal budge. I want to use a scalpel so that people who need help are getting help and those of us like myself and Senator McCain who don't need help aren't getting it. (10/7/08)

...

I think that we do have a disagreement about across-the-board spending freeze. It sounds good, it's proposed periodically. It doesn't happen and in fact an across-the-board spending freeze is a hatchet, and we do need a scalpel because there are some programs that don't work at all. There are some programs that are underfunded. And I want to make sure that we are focused on those programs that work. (10/15/08)

...

The problem with a spending freeze is that you are using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are currently underfunded. I want to increase early-childhood education, and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this medicare subsidy, I think doesn't make sense. (9/27/08)

...

That's why Washington's broken, because we offer gimmicks instead of solutions.

So, keep that in mind tomorrow night, when the President pre-empts all of the networks in order to propose a gimmick to take a hatchet to federal spending...