It is being reported that Pres. Obama will announce the details of his government spending freeze in his State of the Union on Wednesday…..but before that there is a hint of what it will be about:

The spending freeze covers many domestic programmes and departments to which Congress allocates budgets each year, including agriculture, transportation and education and national parks.

Security and defence spending, foreign aid, social security and spending on health care for the poor and retired would be exempt.

The freeze could make the president rein in his ambitious reform agenda, especially with regards to education and the environment.

The last statement……rein in spending on education……..WAIT!

If the key to returning jobs to America is education, then where will a cut in educational spending help create jobs…..after all, so we are told, it is all about the jobs, right?

On another front…..in 2003 the US got intel that said a follow-up attack to 9/11 was called off for something even bigger…….but the interesting part is that it took 7 years for this info to be released and it came on the heels of the announcement that NO spending freeze for national security concerns……kinda like it was needed so there would be little opposition to the announcement…..sorry I digress….but it had to be said….

Back to the point…..how can jobs be created with education if the funds for education are frozen or even slashed?  The key here is that it is NOT what is good for the economy, but rather a continuation of the typical political games that are always played in Washington……what is best for the party to keep its place of prominence…..

But there are those that feel that the freeze would be counterproductive:

But still, many economists have blasted the plan for its potentially anti-stimulative effects and its focus on spending that is not the root cause of the country’s long-term deficits. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that the freeze is “appalling on every level…shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.” Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said that the freeze “will make it impossible for [Obama] to do much of anything for the middle class that’s important.” U.C. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong added “this is a perfect example of fundamental unseriousness: rather than make proposals that will actually tackle the long-term deficit…come up with a proposal that does short-term harm to the economy without tackling the deficit in any serious and significant way.”

And at its core, Obama’s decision cedes to the right-wing both the idea that blanket cuts are necessary and the notion that cuts should be focused on domestic programs while defense spending goes untouched. And already, the right-wing is claiming the freeze as a victory, with the National Review’s Jim Geraghty writing, “if the arguments in the coming years are between spending freezes and spending cuts, then we’ve already won.”

It is all politics…….need more be said?