Freeze!

This discretionary spending freeze idea from the Obama Administration is the first sign that they're not just disappointing and spineless, they're actually stupid. It is impossible that the economics PhD's who are supposedly advising the place believe both that a) deficit spending in a downturn produces positive results, and therefore the stimulus package was (somewhat) effective, and that b) now cutting the deficit will also produce positive results.

In fact, the proposed freeze will be a serious drag on the economy, just like the tightening in 1937. What part of Great Depression do you not understand? We've had this level of stupidity from the Bushies for eight years, with tax cuts that were supposed to work for everything from helping a weak economy to cutting inflation. Eight years of reliably bad news produced by idiots who left the country in a shambles, and now we get more of the same? No thank you.

People should be fired for any policy that would get you thrown out of Econ 101.

Wise up.

More: Brad DeLong rounds up the reactions from actual deficit hawks.

Still more: via Brad, here's Jonathan Zasloff:

Obama’s Self-Inflicted Lobotomy Proceeds Apace « The Reality-Based Community: I’m trying to think of what could possibly be a worse plan. Let’s see: we might be entering a double-dip recession and unemployment is in double-digits, and you are going to freeze spending? What in God’s name are they thinking? Perhaps the worst thing about this is how it cedes the ideological ground to the Republicans. At some point someone must make an argument for government. I think it was former Senator Paul Simon who said: “give the voters a choice between a Republican and a Republican and they will choose a Republican every time.”

What next? The rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon as Treasury Secretary? Or do we already have that?