Brown Hits Back On White House Spending Freeze Push

How shrill of Sherrod Brown, to point out the obvious like that. Tsk, tsk.

Is he just asking for a pork sandwich? Like Nelson?

Someone's been drinking his Balls Beer.

I am a proud Ohioan today.

I like Brown's comments. I don't like your headline. Brown is hitting back at the newly-minted deficit hawks more than the White House.

good for you senator!!! please remind your wussy Dem friends an the nation how we got this big deficit....were they all sleeping when the debt was accumulating? now that their siesta is over, they remember fiscal responsibility....i am all for it, but some things with a high price tag must be done first before we can start working on that budget again.....yes folks, sometimes you have to spend money to make money....geesh!

Let's not forget the Blue Dogs pushing through a _cut_ in the estate tax.
Hypocrites.

1. So the WH announcing a policy counts as "hitting" Sen. Brown, so that any response he gives is "hitting" back. Why are you so entranced by violent metaphor. How about the headline, "Brown doesn't think much of budget plan."

2. Sen Brown's comments are that those who are making the most noise about how serious the deficit is are those who caused it. And of course he is right. But how on earth does that include the President. Not only did he not vote for W's tax cuts, but he is the one who proposed the current fiscal stimulus we are operating under. So Brown actually says he is disturbed by the Republican hypocrits (in another thread the deficit peacocks), his description of who he holds responsible has nothing to do with Obama.

3. To call the announced plan an austerity program is to completely misunderstand what they are proposing, but then again the knee jerks on this thread only need to hear one word and their brains turn off and their knees start a jerkin'.

4. ON a broader policy level surely Sen. Brown is not saying that being serious about the long-term deficit is wrong. He says pretending to be against deficits while pursuing polices that create them is about the worst thing you could do. After Clinton the Democrats were supposed to be able to say plausibly that indeed they are the party of fiscal responsibility. When they say they are going to do something about the deficit they actually follow through. Seems to me this is exactly the policy Obama is following. Run large deficits in the short term but make credible moves that you will get it under control over the medium term. So even this budget plan does not start until 2011, and even then it allows for much of the emergency transitory spending we are seeing now, and it allows for re-allocating spending in areas that promote jobs and growth and cutting where it does not. For example, would anyone object if we got rid of ethanol subsidies and gave all the money to say head start? Anyone?

5. The long-run deficit problem has two origins. (1) the aging of the population and (b) rising health care costs. We can't do much about the first except encourage people to save more and work longer (and continue to permit immigration). Being serious about health care reform, reducing the cost of health care, is the only credible evidence that someone is serious about addressing the long-run fiscal train wreck. The President is surely addressing it. The Republicans refuse.

Thank you, Senator Sherrod Brown, for taking a strong stand on this. After years of deficits due to out-of-control military spending and giveaways to the rich and corporate interests, the "Democrats" are now proposing to freeze discretionary spending, which goes toward programs that help those who are most in need. I expect such mindless and heartless crap from Republicans, but was hoping for more from the Democrats. I am a proud liberal, but if we hear in the State of the Union address tomorrow a call for a non-military spending freeze and continuing to "let the dust settle" on the grave of health care reform, I am done with President Obama and the Democratic leadership, at least until real progressives like Senator Sherrod Brown are listened to by the party.

SO I predict the president calls out the republican on their budget hypocrisy tomorrow night. Calls a peacock a peacock if you will. Of course a lot of conservadumb democrats deserved to be tarred with the same feather.

If only the media confronted every peacock with their own BS instead of feign alarm at rising government spending.