It's very curious that the Obama people are pushing this line today--it's been in several news sources:
"President-elect Barack Obama wants to project fiscal restraint even as his economic team assembles a massive recovery package that could cost several hundred billion dollars. A day after introducing the captains of his economic team and promoting a giant jobs plan, Obama on Tuesday was to lay out his budget belt-tightening vision. The dual images -- big spender and disciplined budget watcher -- were designed to give both political and economic assurances to the public, the Congress and the financial markets."
But, needless to say, this is a very difficult line to walk; one finds it hard to believe that a Democrat with a very liberal constituency will be able to find both the gumption and the opportunity to make billions of dollars in cuts in government programs (quick, name a recent Democratic president who has--Clinton? Carter? Johnson? Kennedy? Nope.), and it sounds contradictory. I'm not so sure you'll hear that much more of this spin...
