This comes from a good article by the Wall Street Journal’s Johnathan Weisman and Deborah Solomon on the Obama administration’s efforts to manage the national debt:

The White House is in the early stages of considering what bigger moves it might make for next year’s budget. The Office of Management and Budget has asked all cabinet agencies, except defense and veterans affairs, to prepare two budget proposals for fiscal 2011, which begins Oct 1, 2010. One would freeze spending at current levels. The other would cut spending by 5%.

It was in Ronald Reagan campaign’s for president that the Republican Party made pendants that read “End All Non-Defense Spending Now.” The Obama White House doesn’t want to do that (nor did Reagan), but the Democratic Obama seems to share the same view here as the Republican Reagan: money for military and wars is essential, everything else isn’t. (That everything else, by the way, doesn’t include entitlement spending — medicare, social security — which is not subject to annual budget deliberations).

It would make sense that money for the Labor Dept. would also be protected given that the labor market crisis is more dire than any national security crisis. Also, what about protecting funding for agencies like the Food and Drug Administration that are just now back on their feet after being gutted by the George W. Bush administration? The Obama administration’s budget blueprint is a testament to the influence of Reagan, and the whole small government/big military movement of the past 30 years.

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