Legal Commentary

Political Bargaining: The Budget "Freeze" Gambit

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein writes:

The president call[ed] for a five-year non-security discretionary spending freeze tonight. [. . .] The Obama administration's proposal is better than [the GOP alternatives], to be sure. But it also feels more like the policy you'd get at the end of a compromise process, not the beginning.

This goes to the Obama administration's theory of negotiating more generally: Do you start with a reasonable compromise? Or do you end with a reasonable compromise? [. . .] The usual liberal critique of this approach is that starting with a reasonable compromise just means you end with a less-reasonable compromise, and the Obama administration would be better off rejecting calls for across-the-board cuts or freezes and trying to persuade Americans that the Republican approach here is wrong, and tax cuts for the wealthy are a much bigger contributor to the deficit than spending on food safety (which is true, incidentally). They might not win that fight, but maybe they'd end up with a three-year spending freeze rather than a five-year spending freeze.

As regular readers know, I'm generally sympathetic with this critique. I think it is misplaced here. Why? Because a "budget freeze" is pretty meaningless jibberish. Freeze what exactly? I'm sure Obama can come up with a good budget at 2010 spending levels that will have no chance of passage. And then folks will forget the freeze proposal entirely. After all, who remembers Obama's freeze proposal from last year? In the context of this particular budget negotiation, this is more "school uniforms" than the 2009 stimulus negotiation bungled by the Obama Administration. More . . .

As a critique of the general messaging of the proposal, the critique has more resonance. But the reality is after The Deal, that ship has sort of sailed for the time being. Maybe in a second term Obama can take another swing at this, but by and large, the "bargaining," such as it is, on general messaging on the deficit has been lost by Obama and the Dems. there won't be a do over on that one until after 2012.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 26, 2011 (boomark / email).