Monday, January 25, 2010

Called it

Scene: My father and I, at dinner. His Blackberry vibrates.

DAD: Huh. Obama's gonna propose a 3-year spending freeze.

Me: Meaning, freezing everything except the military.

Dad: *Skeptical glance*

Me: What else will get through the Senate?

Later, at home
:
On a conference call last night, the administration announced that its upcoming budget would freeze non-security discretionary spending between 2011 and 2013. That's like freezing non-defense discretionary spending, but it also exempts the Department of Homeland Security and the Veteran's Administration from the cuts.
So it's actually even worse than I thought -- the Generals and drug cops still get every demand met, while everyone from teachers to astronauts has to do without.

Craptacular. I feel oddly prescient for doing without the privilege of voting for Obama tonight.

1 comment:

Gar Lipow said...

Your resolution to write less about politics did not last long. Thing is you are really good at writing about politics. Your analysis is always extremely smart, and what is rarer, you are right most of the time. Your writing is good too. Why not start xposting on Grist. I'm pretty sure David would not insist that every post have an environmental spin, since these issues affect the environmental movement a lot, even when they are not classic "environmental" issues.