Last Call

And no, I wasn't kidding about Obama's spending freeze.

U.S. President Barack Obama, under pressure from deficit hawks, will seek a three-year freeze on domestic spending in his 2011 budget that would save $250 billion by 2020, administration officials said on Monday.

Obama will outline the spending hold-down in his State of the Union address on Wednesday and will spell it out in detail on Feb. 1, when he unveils his second budget.

Obama is under fire for a record deficit and has called for a bipartisan congressional commission to consider spending cuts and tax increases to improve the country's fiscal outlook.

His proposed budget savings will need congressional backing and would exclude Defense, Veteran Affairs, Homeland Security and spending on international affairs, the officials said.

Naturally, the GOP is already attacking it.

Republicans dismissed the move as window-dressing by Obama's Democrats after an "unprecedented spending binge."

"This is like announcing you're going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner.

Sure.  And then the GOP will say "Well, if you were really serious about budget matters, you'd throw out your entire agenda and cut taxes."  It'll turn into a contest.  Meanwhile, we'll be cutting spending in the middle of a recession...I mean depression.

I'm getting really tired of asking the rhetorical question about Obama being this stupid.  But he's playing the Republican patsy hook line and sinker.  And they will continue to ravage him when the spending cuts fail to do anything other than make government work worse.