Obama to Call for Five-Year Federal Spending Freeze
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President Barack Obama will propose tonight a five-year freeze of non-security discretionary spending as a way to reduce the federal budget deficit.
Obama plans to offer the freeze in his annual State of the Union address to Congress, Melody Barnes, director of the president’s domestic policy council, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. It would extend a three-year freeze Obama proposed last year by an additional two years. He also will endorse a proposal by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to cut $78 billion from the Pentagon budget over five years, Barnes said.