Update 2:
The State of the Union just concluded.
I sense a fumble. It remains to be seen if the media can pick up the ball for him...
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Tonight in the Sate of the Union address Obama will attempt to lay claim to fiscal rationality. ABC:
Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose a five year budget freeze on non-security related discretionary spending, ABC News has learned.
These are all ideas that could have been brought up during the last congress under the president's party. They were not.
Neither have these ideas been brought to the floor under the current conservative house despite having been campaigned on. Instead, like Obama, John Boehner has given priority to ObamaCare over fiscal sanity. In doing so he may have ceded the issues of both a ban on earmarks and the idea of a budget freeze to the democrats if Obama can claim them.
It will be interesting to see if Obama will be able to recast himself as fiscally sane after two years of fiscal incontinence.
Expect a ticker-tape parade from the press confirming this most recent Obama.
Update:
Reuters
Congressional Republicans on Tuesday sought to put President Barack Obama on the defensive ahead of his State of the Union speech as they pressed their plans to slash domestic spending.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a symbolic measure that touts their intention to slash domestic spending by at least 18 percent in the coming weeks.
The actual vote to cut spending will come during the same week that Obama is expected to unveil his budget proposal for the coming year, House Republican leader Eric Cantor said.
...
The nonbinding resolution, which passed the House by a vote of 256 to 165, would allow Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to cap domestic spending at 2008 levels, a first step in the process of cutting current government funding.
Too little, too late.
out
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