Obama to propose five-year spending freeze

President Obama will call for a five-year freeze in non-security, discretionary spending during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, according to a White House official. The spending freeze will save roughly $400 billion through 2015, according to White House estimates. "In areas outside the freeze, we also will be looking for cuts and efficiencies," a White House official said. "For instance, the president is putting forward a five-year plan developed by [Defense Secretary Robert Gates] to achieve $78 billion in defense savings. In his briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs revealed only scant details about Obama's speech, but he made it clear that the president will "spend most of his time talking about the economy, talking about the challenges that we face both in the short term, in terms of doing whatever we can to help create jobs, in the medium and long term to continue working on issues like competitiveness and innovation." GOP lawmakers have been proposing a $100 billion cut from this year's budget.