Spending more ‘change’

The issue: Both houses of Congress and the president have proposed an unprecedented spending bill of almost $1 trillion.

We say: The bill, which will significantly add to the national debt, is a partisan and aggressive move that will not directly address most of the problems the country is facing — many of which were caused by the government in the first place.


The huge $789 billion spending bill, which is being called a stimulus package by the president and key members of his party, is nothing short of the biggest redistribution of wealth program and grab by the federal government in the history of the U.S.

Forget the fact the latest version of the almost $1 trillion spending bill, brokered by the party promising to be transparent and bipartisan, was scribbled together behind closed doors ­— immediately breaking president Obama’s promise to “reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees ... be conducted in public.”

Mr. Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seem determined to achieve exactly the opposite result of promises made to the American people.
And, where will the $1.17 trillion, after $347 billion in interest, come from?

Every tax payer in the U.S. — not just the rich, not just the corporations or some one else.

It is you, your children, grandchildren, relatives, friends and neighbors who will be made to pay for this spending bill, without which the president says you can’t survive.

In order to “save us,” and pay for the unprecedented spending bill, every person in the U.S. would need to send a check to Washington for about $3,830 — right now.

So, since your money is being taken from you to be given to someone, somewhere else, where will your money — which if we don’t spend right now, we’re all doomed — be spent?

Pelosi will be getting $30 million for her pet project to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse near San Francisco. $300 million will go for new hybrid and electric cars for government workers, and $650 million will be used for TV converter box coupons. $750 million will go for a National Computer Center, $1 billion for administrative costs and construction of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office buildings, about $20 billion for food stamps, $53.6 billion for states to balance their budgets, $7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs,” $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $89 billion for Medicaid and $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships. The list goes on and on.

The final bill contains about $507 billion in spending programs.

There is room to continue trimming the bill to only what is necessary — perhaps even to $0.
Of course, while the spending bill draws the majority of the attention, the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, announced a $2.5 trillion “rescue plan” for the banking system.

Even though the amount of this plan is more than double the social spending, pork-filled bill being hammered out by the Democratic leaders in Congress, almost none of the details are available.

Mr. Obama promised change in Washington, and so far he has delivered — by spending more “change” from your pocket than any other president. And, he’s doing it in fewer than his first 30 days.