A spending freeze, eh?

So, I think that we have to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt on this whole “spending freeze” gambit. Perhaps he legitimately does want to save his party’s hide in the next election reduce the deficit by putting a halt to government expenditures. And he’s saying all the right things: Can’t cut the military or VA budget, etc. The optics are sound.

The problem, as David Frum and others have pointed out, is that actually getting a spending cut out of Congress is pretty hard to do: The idiotic programs are only in place because powerful Congressmen have twisted arms and called in favors to protect favored constituents and the necessary programs like military expenditures can’t be cut. So the economic impact of this proposal will, in all likelihood, be negligible. What will the political impact be?

It already seems to be blowing up in his face: The base, here represented in the form of a brimstone-spewing Paul Krugman, is outraged:

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, “I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy.”

Josh Marshall, meanwhile, snarked “I’m psyched that we’re done messing around with major social reforms and finally getting down to the real business of election year gimmicks.” I think it’s safe to say that Obama has done much to further demoralize an already demoralized base with this move. If he couldn’t get Dems to turn out for Coakley in Massachusetts, how does he think he’ll be able to get them out knocking doors now? And if he think that these paltry cuts will assuage a fired up Republican base that has just witnessed him a.) add a huge amount of money to the national debt, and b.) try to pass an expensive, radical alteration to the health care system, then he’s lost his marbles. It’s a play for the moderates, but as we all know, the political center is largely mythical (and that goes double for midterms, when firing up the base is incredibly important).

So the spending freeze will likely have little economic impact (a fact Obama surely understands) and hurts him politically. The only conclusion I can come up with is this: Obama’s panicking. This is a pure panic move, something focus tested within the bowels of the West Wing, a policy that he and his handlers think will shore up the president’s economic bona fides while appealing to the middle. For a smooth operator like Obama, it is a perplexing — perhaps even troubling — play.