Obama to announce ’spending freeze’

The US president is set to propose a three-year partial freeze on domestic spending in his 2011 budget, administration officials say.

The freeze, to be announced in Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday, would exclude defence, veteran affairs, homeland security and spending on international affairs, the officials said.

“We are in the midst of fighting a war and have security needs. We’re going to fund those security needs as necessary,” one of the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The freeze in “non-security discretionary spending “will be implemented in 2011 and continue throughout 2012 and 2013.

“The savings from the three-year freeze will amount to $250bn over the next decade,” the official said.