As reported on the front page of today's Times, Obama is now proposing a freeze on government spending, except "security-related" budgets (aka the military, homeland security, etc.).
It's not quite clear to me what exactly the freeze amounts to. On his blog, Brad DeLong posted these updates to his post (which I'll quote from shortly) arguing that this is a very bad idea in a stalled recovery:
So we might have to wait until the dust settles to see exactly what this freeze would amount to. But the fact that Obama is even talking about it is disturbing. Here's what DeLong has to say:
Barack Herbert Hoover Obama?
Obama to Propose Freeze on Some Spending to Trim Deficit
Read the Times article.
Read DeLong's post.