National Review Online: Coburn, Barrasso: Obama's Smoke and Mirrors

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By: Robert Costa

Two Republican senators tell National Review Online that the spending freeze is too little, too late from President Obama. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) calls the president's proposal mostly smoke and mirrors. "This administration doesn't really want to cut spending," he says. "They're just playing the old political game where you say one thing and do another. By the time we see all of the exceptions, it'll be clear that this kind of freeze won't do much to solve our fiscal problems."

"Now, any movement to not spend more money is good, but the president's proposal is insufficient," Coburn says. "The president needs to focus on reducing the debt. To do that, we should be looking at more ways to cut the waste and redundancy in Washington. This just isn't enough."

Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) agrees. He tells NRO that the president shouldn't propose a spending freeze without first addressing how he wants to reign in the potential cost of his health-care plan. "If the president was really focused on jobs and the economy then he'd say it's time to start over on heath care," says Barrasso. "It's also not a real freeze since it's not indexed to inflation. The American people will eventually realize that this so-called freeze is nothing more than a drop in the bucket."

During the president's State of the Union address tomorrow, Coburn adds that he wants to "hear some humility" from the president about how he's "reached too far," as well as "specifics" about how he's going to move to the political center. Barrasso, for his part, predicts that "the president will have his rhetoric, but it'll still fly in the face of what's happened in the first year of his presidency."

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