The spending freeze, which will begin with the 2011 budget starting in October, will target programs that weren't working well and save $250 billion over the next decade, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget Rob Nabors said in a conference call.

"Under this budget, by the middle of the decade, non-security discretionary spending will fall to its lowest share of the economy in 50 years," Nabors said.

That is still a fraction of the $9 trillion in budget deficits expected to accumulate in that time, according to the New York Times, but Nabors argued it is a step toward developing long-term fiscal sustainability.

A team of 500 budget analysts spent the last three months going over the budget line by line in an effort to isolate the spending programs that would be frozen. Exempt from the freeze are security-related programs, such as the Pentagon and Homeland Security as well as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Nabors also said programs, such as the Pell grants, which provide money for poor students to attain higher education, "will be taken care of in our budget."

"The president's objectives haven't really changed. We are still focused on creating an economy that will work in the 21st century. We are still working on improving the education system. We are still working on making investments in clean energy. More than anything, we are slowing the growth of some of these programs, while at the same time eliminating things that really aren't priorities or that we believe don't work," Nabors said.

The move is seen by many as an attempt by President Obama to appeal to centrist voters by addressing concerns over the size of the budget deficit. It is also part of a larger strategy to craft a more populist message by focusing more on economic recovery and jobs as opposed to health care, which Obama has deemed as his top domestic priority. Yesterday, he announced a package of tax changes designed to help the middle class.Republicans are skeptical.

"Given Washington Democrats' unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you're going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest," Michael Steele, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), told Politico.

"I applaud [Obama] for attempting to have some fiscal restraint," Republican strategist Ed Rollins told CNN. "But at the end of the day, he's got to make sure the Democrats are disciplined and they don't have big spending programs alongside of this."

Nabors said the spending freeze is part of a three-pronged strategy by Obama to get the country back on the right track. Health care reform and a job-creation package that will go in to effect for the 2010 budget year are also major parts of the effort.

"The president is very focused right now in terms of putting people back to work," said Nabors. "In 2010, we are focused on making sure we can get people back to work. In 2011, when we believe the economy will be back on stronger footing , we will be looking to make sure the footing we are putting them on is a more sustainable discretionary fiscal footing."

"Health care reform is long-term deficit reform. In order to bring our long-term deficit under control, we need to do something about health care. On the discretionary side, the president is proposing this three year freeze that will save a quarter of a trillion dollars over 10 years. The president has expressed his support for a fiscal commission that will sit down and look at revenues and take a look at some of the mandatory programs and make proposals Congress can consider going in to next year. Between those three things, we have a solid strategy that will allow us to put the country back on a sustainable path," Nabors added.