That's it? A domestic spending freeze?

I respect President Obama's desire to rein in federal spending and close the budget deficit, but a freeze on domestic spending is a woefully inadequate approach, and worse, it places the blame for the deficit exactly where it shouldn't be placed, but exactly where Republicans want it to go -

Right smack on the backs of America's poor, elderly, and children.

If this idea was floated by his predecessor, screams would have risen from coast to coast.

Including from me.

And the fact that Barack Obama is a Democrat doesn't mean that he should get a free pass on this one.


Let's be clear - federal spending *is* out of control (current CBO analysis here) and controls are needed. However, the root of the problem isn't domestic spending (or earmarks, Jeff Flake's rhetoric notwithstanding), or even the Bush tax cuts (which certainly haven't helped, though), but instead the continued siphoning of America's resources to fund the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

We are spending over $10 billion per month on one war (Iraq) that was justified with lies (WMDs, anyone) and another (Afghanistan) where the justification (hunting down Osama bin Laden) is looking more and more suspect (he hasn't been there for years, yet American troops are still fighting and dying there).

On top of that, all of the troops who survive those wars will need the care that they have been promised, and deserve, by a nation grateful for their service, and that will cost billions.

Enough already.

The President campaigned on promises to get the U.S. military out of both countries; it is time for him to deliver on those promises.

And in a rather fortuitous coincidence, delivering on those promises would help him balance the budget in a way that minimizes the impact to America's most vulnerable citizens.