In a move designed to demonstrate the administration’s commitment to fiscal responsibility, the president will use his State of the Union address Wednesday night to call for a partial, non-security, discretionary spending freeze, multiple media outlets are reporting.   

While details are still vague, anonymous White House officials have told sources that the proposed spending freeze would save $250 billion over the next decade.  The freeze would take effect for the 2011 fiscal year which begins October 1, and last for a period of three years. 

Exempt from the freeze are agencies that deal with security matters such as Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and State.  Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, for which money is allocated yearly based on a formula, would also be exempt.   

White House officials acknowledge that the freeze is more symbolic than substantive – in the most recent fiscal year, discretionary spending represented just $447 billion of the mutli-trillion dollar budget – however, they claim that it is a start down a more fiscally responsible path.   

Others on the left do not see it that way.  Liberals, already angry at what they see as White House inaction on campaign promises, a failure to fight for a progressive health care bill, and constant capitulation to recalcitrant Republicans, are on the verge of revolt.  Many on the left have been arguing for more bold and ambitious action on the economy and see the spending freeze as the exact opposite of that.   

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that Obama was abandoning his base and handing Republicans a political victory.   

“It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment,” he wrote. “It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.” 

The White House quickly sought to emphasize that the spending freezes would not be across the board, that some agencies could actually see more money in the new budget, but that did little to temper the anger coming from the left.   

Liberals have complained since the $787 billion stimulus package was passed last year, claiming it was not large enough, contained too much in tax cuts and was not focused enough on job creation.  Now they are wondering how the administration plans to create desperately needed jobs by slashing spending in the middle of a recession.  Some have called the move Hoover-esque.   

“You guys … are not only not talking about a second stimulus, you’re talking about trying to cut … the budget,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow told Vice Presidential economic advisor Jared Bernstein on her show. “I have to tell you, it sounds completely, completely insane.” 

Even those on the right, who one would think would be cheering the announced spending freeze, were mocking the president and his proposal.   

“Given Washington Democrats’ unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you’re going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, according to The Washington Post.

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