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President Obama's State of the Union addressPresident Obama's proposal tonight to freeze discretionary federal spending for three years may or may not be a smart idea. Certainly it is a good idea to exclude, as he put it, "spending related to national security." I hope he realizes, however, that such spending is not synonymous with the Defense Department budget.

Like the budgets of all bureaucracies, but much more so, the Pentagon is stuffed with entrenched interests, parochial barons, and internecine rivalries.

In the budget-freeze section of his State of the Union address, Obama noted that because of the economy, many American families "are tightening their belts and making tough decisions," so "the federal government should do the same." The administration will, he...