Obama to propose a freeze in non-security discretionary spending in 2011, 2012, 2013.

WASHINGTON–The Obama White House will propose in its fiscal 2011 budget–unveiled next Monday–a freeze in non-security discretionary spending in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The White House calculates that “the savings from the three year freeze will amount to $250 billion over the next decade,” a senior administration official said on Monday.

Congress would have to approve a freeze. The freeze is on the overall discretionary bottom line, not across-the-board.

“This is not a blunt approach, we have actually gone through very carefully and some agencies will be up, some agencies will be down, investments made in key areas balanced by reductions in others. So while there’s an overall freeze it doesn’t mean that every single program or every single agency is frozen. It’s a more sophisticated and nuanced approach than that,” the official said.

The proposed freeze covers discretionary spending outside security agencies, which are defined as the Defense Department, Veterans Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and some international affairs funding programs.