Visions of Flightsuits...

I am genuinely afraid that Obama may have used the State of the Union to declare "Mission Accomplished" with respect to the economy. In a meeting with the Republican Caucus today, his explanation of why the controversial spending freeze kicks in a year from now (instead of immediately) betrays a premature conviction that the economy has escaped imminent danger:

Now, the reason that I'm not proposing the discretionary freeze take into effect this year, retro -- we prepared a budget for 2010, it's now going forward -- is, again, I am just listening to the consensus among people who know the economy best.

And what they will say is that if you either increased taxes or significantly lowered spending when the economy remains somewhat fragile, that that would have a destimulative effect and potentially you'd see a lot of folks losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs. That would be a mistake when the economy has not fully taken off.

That's why I've proposed to do it for the next fiscal year.

The spending freeze is either stupid or cynical, but thinking that everything will be perfect in a year is an astonishingly large gamble. FDR experienced the same premature celebration when after four years of successful recovery he decided to bend to political pressure and balance the budget in 1936. I think we know how that turned out.

For reasons political and for the lives of all the people who would be affected by a reinvigorated recession, I hope that Obama doesn't find himself blaming the spending freeze on a rogue Navy crew.