As President Obama plans to propose a spending freeze in his 2011 fiscal budget for the next three years agencies are getting anxious. This proposal will be revealed this upcoming Monday, February 1st, 2010.This spending freeze will also be mentioned tonight during Obama’s State of the Union speech. The three-year freeze is expected to save a total of $250 billion over a period of ten years. The Department of Defense, foreign aid, Homeland Security Department, and veterans programs will not be included in the freeze.
This proposed freeze will apply to the discretionary budget. Some agencies are feeling some apprehension about this proposed spending freeze because there is lots of uncertainty as to what programs will be continued, and what projects will need to be halted.
According to the Washington Post, Rob Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, they are taking small steps and want to “make sure that we are spending money wisely, we’re going to be ending programs that don’t work, we’re streamlining those that do, and we’re cracking down on special-interest access.â€
According to GovExec reports, a White House official said, “We have actually gone through very carefully and some agencies will be up, some agencies will be down, investments made in key areas balanced by reductions in others.â€
The official continued on to say, “So while there’s an overall freeze it doesn’t mean that every single program or every single agency is frozen.†Now agencies will just have to wait to find out their fate.