Mike Conaway: “I would feel a lot better about our President tomorrow night if he would say not only are we going to freeze spending…”

“I would feel a lot better about our President tomorrow night if he would say not only are we going to freeze spending, but we are going to freeze it at 2008 levels. What has happened with the $787 billion stimulus, much of that money went into already-existing programs and elevated the floor of current spending. And then, on top of that, the 2010 appropriations bill, double-digit increases on that. So we are spending a significant amount of money more in 2010 than we did in 2008. So if the President would say, All right, let's reset the clock back to 2008, when he first got here, at those levels and then freeze it there, I would feel a lot better about what he is trying to propose tomorrow night. I do want to point out that it seems as if over the weekend he was going to freeze spending except for defense, homeland security, VA, and foreign affairs. Then I heard today or yesterday that, well, even within the discretionary spending that is going to be frozen, if programs create new jobs, then they are not going to be frozen.”