The two-year freeze on federal civilian pay that President Obama proposed on Monday may actually reduce federal expenditures by the $2 Billion in the rest of fiscal year 2011 that he claims (0.2% of the projected $980 Billion budget deficit. The actual budget deficit is likely to be much higher.) But this small savings may end up losing him the 13 electoral votes that Virginia is expected to have in 2012, proving just as politically costly any attempt to restrain the entitlement spending he has fought so hard to increase. Spending on Medicare and Social Security alone, collectively termed the third rail of politics, is scheduled to total $1.2 Trillion in 2011.

The freeze will be strongly felt in the suburban counties around Washington, the home of many affected employees and one of Obama’s main power bases in Virginia. Fairfax and Arlington counties alone provided him with almost 400,000 of the 2 million votes he received in the Commonwealth in 2008. Obama won Virginia by 235,000 votes.