Obama proposes domestic spending freeze over 5 yrs

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, U.S. President Barack Obama proposed annual domestic spending freeze for the next five years, which he said would reduce the deficit by more than 400 billion U.S. dollars over the next decade.

The proposal "will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president," Obama said at the chamber of the House of Representatives, which is now controlled by Republicans following their overwhelming win in the midterm elections.

"I recognize that some in this Chamber have already proposed deeper cuts, and I' m willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without," said Obama. "But let' s make sure that we' re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens. And let' s make sure what we' re cutting is really excess weight."

House and Senate conservatives recently proposed to cut 2.5 trillion dollars from the federal budget over 10 years. Just hours before the president's speech before Congress, the House voted to slash spending this year to 2008 levels or less, a campaign promise Republican leadership made during the midterm elections.


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