Obama acts on budget deficit

26 January 2010 |permalink | email article

In the run up to his State of the Union address on Wednesday President Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending. The initiative is intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit.

Liberal economists like Robert Reich say the president is panicking, a win for Wall Street over Main Street and dooms a recovery. Far more interesting is how the Grand Old Party which never uttered a peep during the Bush administration in terms of deficit spending and record debt responds. It has harshly criticized the White House for a lack of fiscal responsibility over the past year.

Until now the minority Republican Party has chosen a Congressional agenda, as a New York Times editorial put it, of just saying no. As in no health care reform. No to global warming repairs; no real reform of Wall Street; no, in fact, to any act of creative opposition.

As the Times editorial suggests, sooner or later constituents must wonder how far Republicans can take pure opposition as a political philosophy without offering believable program alternatives. Is the party opposite capable of just saying yes for once?

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