Punching Midgets...

Mirroring its creator, the Great Obama Budget Freeze is turning out to be both ill-considered politically and less than meets the eye. Yeah, I'm shocked too:

Late Monday afternoon, a small group of reporters crowded into a conference room in the Eisenhower executive office building to hear two "senior administration officials" give an embargoed briefing on what will be the most debated part of the president's budget for 2011. On Feb. 1, that budget will be released. About $447 billion will be devoted to funding the government  -- the parts that aren't mandated by law (the entitlements) or aren't related to defense, intelligence, veterans or national security issues.  Obama will promise to veto any budget that exceeds that threshold, NOT adjusted for inflation, over the next three years. $250 billion would be saved over the baseline. Here's the talking point: this component of government spending will be at its lowest level relative to GDP since 1950.

Big fucking deal. He's putting a freeze on about 17% of the budget, and he's freezing the budget component with the slowest rate of growth overall. Realbudget reduction can only become reality if entitlements (the 75+% of the budget that's growing like a weed) are reined in. Even Paul Krugman knows that. Clearly this isn't about fiscal responsibility. It's about gaining a "talking point" to bolster Bambi's sad-ass presidency at the State of the Union address.

So basically what we have here is Bambi walking into the budgetary bar looking for a fightto prove just how tough he is. He sees a very large, very scarred, very tattooed biker type - entitlements - takes a deep breath, strides manfully across the bar and sucker punches the midget standing next to the biker type.

And Bambi really thinks this is gonna make him a badass in everyone's eyes. It wasn't a fair fight, in fact it wasn't even a fight, but by God he won it. He punched out his midget.

No doubt Andrew Sullivan will be thrilled.

Comments

[Zimriel]

You're using the wrong Norman French word. You want "rein". "Reign" is something kings do.

[Dennis The Peasant]

Duly noted.

[David]

Sullivan's defense of midget punching in three . . . two . . . one . . .

[Joe Redfield]

This is the equivalent of me going into the same bar and drinking nineteen beers instead of my usual twenty.
BOOT!

[Joe Redfield]

Actually, upon further review, the beer analogy is not quite correct. I forgot the first lesson in Political Math 101: the government spends $100 billion on program X in FY09, the President requests $150 billion for program X in FY10, but Congress only appropriates $145 billion, thereby 'cutting' $5 billion in spending. (And of course, this heartless slash in spending sends the Progresso-American Community into paroxysms of rage.) I am not going to hold my breath until Congress actually reduces spending on anything.
BOOT!

[DonnieDarko]

I am old. BOOT?

[Joe Redfield]

Think about it...the President's initials are...how long to we want him to serve...By Jove, I think you've got it! But don't spell it out because I can make a mint selling decoder rings to brain-dead progressives(Sorry about the redundancy)

[Randy Rager]

CNN actually ran something claiming to be a Twitter beneath their Haiti coverage either Sunday or Monday. Something along the lines of:

"Let's end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The Department of Education and be just like Haiti!"

Uh-huh.