Rich Lowry On The Obama Freeze

I know lots of people think Obama's spending freeze is a gimmick, and that it really won't freeze much of the budget. But I gotta tell you--the SIGNIFICANCE of the "gimmick" is real--it is a huge political concession, as Rich Lowry eloquently informs us. So you don't have to go and read it on NRO--I'll repeat the whole paragraph below. Good stuff.

"I'm delighted by Obama's freeze. Not because it will make much difference in the federal budget, as has been ably pointed out by many in this space. But because Obama has given away important intellectual and political ground. It's not true that politicians can really "say anything." Spin has to have some connection to reality and a politician's case has to cohere. What Obama has just done is blow a huge hole in the argument for his own governance over the last year. If the economy is still weak but we can freeze discretionary spending anyway, it's much harder for him to argue that massive government spending is the predicate for economic growth in defense of the stimulus. And if the deficit is such a threat that he needs to swing around to supporting a spending freeze, it's much harder for him to continue to push for a new $1 trillion entitlement. He can try to square all this — stimulus spending was necessary in the dire conditions of 2009, but less so now; the new $1 trillion health-care entitlement is actually a deficit-reduction measure — but it's going to be very difficult. That's why I think the Krugmans and the Kleins are right to be dismayed by this, even if the actual dollar amount is small. It represents an important tilting of the political playing field to the right on these issues."