Small Change™: Obama budget freeze is like you buying store-brand rice crispies.
Obama is promising a budget freeze on non-discretionary, non-defense funding. This amounts to a “freeze” on $450 billion out of $3.6 trillion budget. That’s about 12.5%. So Obama is promising to “freeze” spending on 12.5% of the federal budget. (An idea he harshly criticized during the campaign.)
To put that in perspective, most Americans spend about 13-15% on groceries each year. So Obama’s budget “freeze” is the equivalent of you saying you won’t increase your grocery budget next year. You will still drive the Lexus, you will still pay for your second cousin’s hip replacement, and you’ll still give your brother’s wife’s uncle a little spending cash because he neglected to save for his retirement–but, darn it, you’re going to keep the grocery budget in check.
Of course, this isn’t really a freeze. It is, as Obama has said, keeping the total amount of the budget in check. Knowing Obama and the Democrats like we do, you can bet that we’ll be upgrading our cold-cuts to Boarshead ham, while cutting out the fruits and vegetables and switching to store-bought rice crispies. After all, there is nothing politicians like more than pork.