President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address tomorrow night. He may or may not talk about dubious global warming, but a centerpiece of his address will likely be a dubious spending freeze. Many Americans were upset by the spending of the previous administration, but they have been shocked by the out-of-control spending of the Obama Administration. Last year, the Associated Press noted that Barack Obama’s budget “would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.” (If you are a visual learner, click here.)

Not surprisingly, a number of recent surveys have found that deficit reduction and reduced federal spending are more important to voters than healthcare reform. Obama seems to have gotten that message – sort of. It’s being reported that the president will propose a three-year freeze on some discretionary spending, which will save about $25 billion a year. It’s a start, but let’s put that into perspective.

To begin with, the whole concept of a spending freeze is yet another flip-flop for Obama. As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedlyopposed the idea of a spending freeze during the presidential debates, saying it was “using a hatchet when you need a scalpel.”

This spending freeze is coming from a president who just racked up a record $1.4 trillion deficit with a failed stimulus spending bill, numerous bailouts and a budget that “increased non-defense spending by 12 percent.” One congressional aide remarked that Obama’s spending freeze is like “going on a diet after winning the pie eating contest.”

Obama’s proposed $25 billion in savings amounts to less than two percent of last year’s record deficit. And it comes just as his liberal allies in Congress are trying to pass a trillion-dollar socialized medicine scheme and yet another $100 billion stimulus plan. Clearly we need to take a hatchet to the federal budget, but Obama is only reluctantly reaching for his scalpel.