I agree with much of what Michael Scherer has written below–but I still think Ezra Klein has made the crucial point here: if you call a spending freeze and you can’t cut the crap programs, you have to cut the good ones or you seem doubly weak: unable to cut the lousy stuff and unable to meet your freeze target.
It seems to me that the President has to be more focused on this point. He has to pick a few bad programs–farm subsidies for agribusiness, sugar subsidies (an especially powerful argument at this point, since if you lifted them, you’d revive Haiti’s economy in a heartbeat). a few others–and go after them, and make sure he beats them.It’s good policy and better politics.
Obama is badly in need of a win…and not a win-win, where no one really loses (although I have no problem with those). He needs a win where someone specific–some bad actor–loses. This is another area where his presidency reminds me of early Bill Clinton: Clinton didn’t beat anybody, either–indeed, he was something of a punching bag–until he lost the Congress in 1994 and gained a wonderful foil in Newt Gingrich. When Gingrich tried to shut down the government, Clinton fought him and smoked him. It was a necessary victory, the first time Clinton really seemed strong in office. Obama needs a victory like that now, lest he continue to hemorrhage leverage.