Is anyone paying attention to this?
Last week it was the $787 billion Stimulus Bill, which supposedly contained no earmarks of any kind. Of course, that was a lie, but, let’s set that aside for now. This week, it’s the Omnibus Bill, which if you aren’t aware, is a totally separate, $410 billion bill that’s been passed by the House this week. An omnibus bill is a scary thing; it’s essentially hundreds of separate bills that may be totally unrelated, which are grouped together in one big package. This particular bill, besides containing pro-abortion language, includes about 9,000 earmarks. That’s right, 9,000 earmarks – those things that were so bad, Obama wanted everyone to know they weren’t a part of the stimulus package. This is a classic magician’s sleight of hand trick; while all eyes are on the Stimulus, there goes the Omnibus.
An example? How about $2 million for “swine odor and manure management.” Or another $2 million for new buildings at the Center for Grape Genetics. Want more? Here’s all 258 pages.
And, unfortunately, we can’t just blame the Democrats. No, many Republicans were quick to include as much Republican pork as they possibly could.
Change? Hardly. The only change I think we’re going to see is what we have left in our pockets after Obama and company take our wallets. By the way, I’m not mentioning the President’s proposed budget, which would leave us with a deficit the equivalent of $12,000 per taxpayer.
Earlier today I was thinking of the old song by Ten Years After, I’d Love To Change The World:
Tax the rich
Feed the poor
Till there are no
Rich no more.I’d love to change the world,
But I don’t know what to do.
So I’ll leave it up to you.
However, “leaving it up to you” now means leaving this mess for our kids to pay off. I’m thinking that perhaps another old song is more appropriate:
Call out the instigators
Because there’s something in the air
We’ve got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution’s here, and you know it’s right
And you know that it’s right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now (Something In The Air – Thunderclap Newman)
I’m just sayin’ …
Yes, it is also disappointing that the Republicans have also suddenly become the “responsible” ones after the way that they used the “War on Terror” to throw money at defense contractors and subcontractors with no obligation to report how they spent, as long as it went to “Fight terrorists.” So we ended up with firms like KBR funding shadow companies who used cheap labor and indentured servitude to bring in workers from Jordan and India while Iraqi’s, deemed too expensive to hire were left unemployed.
Why the sudden fiscal responsibility from the Republicans? Because they refuse to own up to the failure of cutting taxes while increasing spending on war to balloon the federal deficit while cutting back on infrastructure and education spending.
Republicans are a joke. And, they’re favorite spokespersons hope that the country fails because they don’t like Obama.
And Jimmy Carter’s term was troubled because he was stuck with the mess left by Ford and Nixon.
Welcome back, Carter.
By the way, this supposedly is the largest increase in appropriated spending since the Carter Administration.
Nice work, guys.
They all voted against the Stimulus bill, though apparently 3 Republican senators did vote for it. I don’t know what the vote was on the Omnibus, but apparently partisan politics didn’t stop them from tossing in their pet projects. According to Representative Jeff Flake from AZ, 40% of the pork comes from Republicans.
However, the official RNC Statement issued is:
I thought every single Repub. in the House voted against the Bill?
And only three jumped the fence in the Senate.(?)