CrackedWorld

The president signed the Omnibus Spending Bill today that President Bush had left hanging and unfinished. The 2008 budget is now set by the stroke of President Obamas’ pen. The controversial bill has already created a rift inside the Democrat Party between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The rift was created by a roll reversing statement from Speaker Pelosi that any changes to the omnibus bill would be unacceptable. Historically, the procedure is that The Senate makes the changes to bills to reconcile them with The House of Representatives.

While the Senate debated the elimination of an automatic pay raise for themselves Reid said there could be no changes to the bill or Pelosi would pull the plug.

According to The Christian Science Monitor, several spending bills were purposely held up until after the election under the assumption that they would more easily pass once the democrats held even more seats in Congress The CSM stated:

Last year, Congress delayed voting on 9 of 12 spending bills, thinking it would be easier to reach a consensus this year - with Democrats now holding a larger majority in both houses of Congress.

Yet it remained a tough slog for the bill, which has been criticized as filled with pork. Along with some 8,500 member projects, the bill raises spending for many agencies some 10 percent above 2008 levels.

According to The Heritage Foundation, these 8500+ “member projects”,why dont they just call them what they are earmarks,  total nearly $20 billion.  So much for going line- by-line through bills to eliminate government waste. “The future demands that we operate in a different way than we have in the past, so let there be no doubt: this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and to demand.” These are President Obamas’ words I hope he makes good on them; though it would be a day late and a dollar short (no pun intended), as far as I’m concerned. Remember the$787 billion Stimulus Bill?

EARMARK REFORM?

President Obama at the time of the bill signing also unveiled the key components of an anti-earmark initiative as follows:

1. A requirement that earmarks be open to public scrutiny
2. That no earmark ever be traded for political favors (good luck policing that!)
3. That earmarks aimed at a for-profit private company should be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements as other federal contracts.

Here are the provisions I would like to see added:

1. A requirement that no one votes on a bill of any sort until they’ve read the entire piece of legislation.(the omnibus budget for 2008 was 3417 pages)
2. No longer will Congress vote themselves an automatic pay raise.
3. Congress will take a pay cut equal in percentage to those of budgetary spending overages.

The president talked the talk but will he walk the walk?

Already the biggest spender of any president in history and a big getter of pork in his brief time as a senator Pr. Obamas track record doesn’t indicate that he will.

Only time will tell, but I’m not holding my breath.

It’s a Cracked World

Tags: Congress, Earmarks, Politics, Stimulus