There are some caveats. This will only apply to non-defense discretionary spending, or about one-eighth of the entire budget. Obama is being rightly mocked for this across the blogosphere and in the media. Personally, I think that enacting a budget freeze now while touting it as the administration's focus on fiscal responsibility is kind of like Tiger Woods not visiting a mistress during a tournament and claiming that it shows his deep commitment to monogamy.
I'd also note that it's conveniently set to expire right when the proposed health reforms kick in, another in a endless serious of accounting tricks.
My more serious question, however, is this: Whose economic model is the Obama administration working off of now? For over a year, we've been pummeled with Keynesian stimulus plans, with rhetoric about how government must stimulate demand, how the huge deficits are needed right now so that the government can be the consumer of last resort. Paul Krugman has been beating the drum from the very beginning about how we need even more stimulus than we already have.
Now, apparently, the Keynesian view is out of fashion in the Obama administration. So what view is now driving their thinking?
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