Should we call Obama out on his fig-leaf spending freeze?

As The Economist notes, the easy ‘xplanation for this is the financial crisis. But in fact, the drive skywards started “even before Lehman Brothers collapsed” and “George Bush did not even go through a prudent phase.” Nor did his European counterparts, who had started hiking spending long before any credit freeze had given the economy anything approaching an ice cream headache.

If Obama is being intellectually serious (as opposed to simply bowing to political pressures in the wake of the Coakley defeat, the thank-god failure of a terrible health-care “reform” bill, and the lead-balloon-like drop of his overall ratings), he wouldn’t be diddling around with a minor freeze on tiny spending. He’d be acknowledging forthrightly that out-of-control government spending (at all levels) is indeed the problem that’s driving instability and lethargic markets. And he’d be taking serious action to make it clear that what he once called a “new era of fiscal responsibility” is actually upon us.