This Freeze Sounds Like a Slushy
Or so an unnamed senior Obama official yesterday promised a conference call of left wing bloggers.
Matt Yglesias was on the call and this is what he heard:
[T]he plan calls for the FY 2011 budget to be higher than the FY 2010 budget, but then for non-security discretionary spending to be held constant in FY 2012 and FY 2013. (Let me note right here that all of the reporters on the call, myself included, screwed up and forgot to seek clarification as to whether this is a nominal freeze or a real dollar freeze).
The freeze would not apply to the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security, or to the foreign operations budget of the State Department. The official emphasized that the freeze is not the only element of the administration’s plans for deficit reduction, just the only element he was prepared to discuss on this particular call. “This is only one component of an overall budget,” he said, “you’ll see other components on Monday.”
So is this an across-the-board freeze like we’ve heard Republicans call for? No, it’s “not a blunt across the board freeze.” Rather, some agencies will see their budgets go up and others will go down, producing an overall freeze effect. The senior official sought to portray this as not just a question of spending less money, but of getting our money’s worth—cutting (unspecified) ineffective programs and spending more on programs that work.
I was not on the call, obviously, but here's what I hear: the "freeze" is slush.
When government officials promise to cut bad programs and save good ones, they run into this harsh paradox of government budgeting: You don't cut the good programs because they are good. And you can't cut the bad programs because they have powerful backers. There are zillions of imaginable foolish ways to spend money. Only some succeed in barnacling themselves upon the federal government. Those that do succeed, succeed by assembling supportive political coalitions more powerful than any plausible coalition against them. And those powerful backers do not become LESS powerful when the president has been weakened. That's the case for across-the-board freezes and cuts. A big, simple rule can be followed even if it's dumb. A subtle, nuanced rule cannot be executed, even if on paper it's theoretically more intelligent. See: mohair subsidy, history of.