it struck me the speech was a political campaign speech. it wasn t a serious governing speech. sean: cbo comes out this day and says this year we are going to increase the deficit another 1.5 trillion. by the end of 2011 he will have accumulated shy of five trillion in new debt. he talked about cutting, but 400 billion in 10 years, when he s accumulated nearly five trillion doesn t add up and the freeze starts when he had this dramatic increase. i back, i was reminded that i had proposed a spending freeze in 1983, when we had a democratic congress. i met with president reagan and tried to suggest he fight for a spending freeze in 1983, the entire federal government, was about half the size of the current deficit. so the deficit is twice as big
asked this question last night, might that mean that he would trim them just a little bit? that didn t come up over the course of the meeting with axelrod. it wasn t like we were high-fiving him. i mean, the mood in the room was cautiously optimistic, but they made very clear in that meeting that when their new budget comes out as a result of this spending freeze, there are going to have to be a lot of significant cuts. and it could be a situation where in a few weeks, the so-called professional left will be howling because of these budget cuts. i mean, there needs to be a lot more details. it was a vague speech. i think people liked the fact that there was a forward-looking narrative ton economy that has been somewhat missing in the past year, but nonetheless, there are a lot of specifics we have not seen yet. and i think once we see that, people will start to react. ari, on specifics, when they re talking about a spending freeze, did david axelrod unravel the riddle of how you
that s how he tried to disguise his call for more spending on everything from infrastructure to green jobs. the president: we ll invest in biomedical research, information technology and especially, clean energy technology. an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet and create new jobs. instead of subs dicing yesterday s energy, let s invest in tomorrow s. all these investments in innovation, education and infrastructure, will make america a better place to do business and create jobs. cutting deficit by gutting investments and education is like lightning an overloaded air plan by removing its engine. sean: given the president called for a spending freeze all of this new spending may prove problematic. even the associated press is pointing out that the logic didn t hold up to scrutiny.
track down this concept of winning the future. underneath it all, this is a very big government, very liberal approach cleverly disguised he reminded me of a teenager who had beenj spending $3,000 a month and came in and said, you know, i want to become frugal let s cap me i don t need to spend more than $3,000 a month for the next five years. it makes no sense. the country thinks we re spending too much. a spending freeze accomplishes nothing. we have to dramatically reduce our current levels of spending. furthermore, do you really want the government, which he by the way, said doesn t work very well. he s the one who made fun about the salmon one department for freshwater another department for saltwater another department for smoked salmon. it was a funny joke. if that government doesn t work very well, why does he want it to be bigger?
it struck me the speech was a political campaign speech. it wasn t a serious governing speech. sean: cbo comes out this day and says this year we are going to increase the deficit another 1.5 trillion. by the end of 2011 he will have accumulated shy of five trillion in new debt. he talked about cutting, but 400 billion in 10 years, when he s accumulated nearly five trillion doesn t add up and the freeze starts when he had this dramatic increase. i back, i was reminded that i had proposed a spending freeze in 1983, when we had a democratic congress. i met with president reagan and tried to suggest he fight for a spending freeze in 1983, the entire federal government, was about half the size of the current deficit. so the deficit is twice as big