This proposed budget freeze is pretty worthless

Talk about an understatement. $15 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget comes to a 0.04 percent cut -- that is 1/25th of 1 percent.

President Obama, after spending hundreds of billions his first year, now is seeking a partial three-year federal spending freeze that would reduce budgets by less than 1 percent.

The drop-in-the-bucket nature of the president's proposal was underscored Tuesday by a Congressional Budget Office estimate projecting the 2010 federal deficit to hit $1.35 trillion -- Obama's spending freeze would be expected to save up to $15 billion the first year.

The president will propose the congressional freeze on "non-security" spending in his State of the Union address Wednesday night, senior administration officials said. The freeze, which would apply to annual spending on day-to-day government, appears to be an attempt to answer widespread voter concern about rising deficits and debt. . . . .

The relatively small portion of the budget that is to be frozen has already increased by 24 percent over the last year. On top of that the freeze doesn't go into effect until 2011 so they can increase things further before the freeze.

On the even more negative side, the CBO projects that the budget deficit this year will be $1.3 trillion.