Hopenchange
President Obama continued to stomp all over his own campaign promises yesterday, as he signed the $410 billion Omnibus spending bill into law. The bill, the largest of it's kind in history, increased spending by $32 billion (during a severe recession, no less. Up yours, taxpayers), and was littered with over 8,500 of those "little porky amendments," as Sen. Chucky Schumer (D-NY) calls them. Obama ignored his promises to reform the pork process, and ignored his promise to "go through the budget line by line" to eliminate waste. What we got instead was more wasteful big government politics as usual. We also got a bunch of mealy-mouthed bullspit from Obama in an attempt to rationalize it all away. Here's our Equivocator-In-Chief, talking about signing the bill:
“I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it’s necessary for the ongoing functions of government, but I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change…This piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business.”
Ah yes, I see. There just wasn't TIME for change NOW, the spending bill had to be jammed through, "imperfect" as it is. This is almost exactly the same lame excuse Obama gave us for breaking his campaign promise regarding transparency on the stimulus package. And I just love the part where he says "this…legislation must mark and end to the old way of doing business." What a laughingstock. If Dear Leader wanted to end the old way of doing business, all he had to do was VETO the bill. Maybe Obama forgot, he's the President of the United States ! If it was change he wanted, change he could have had. As Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said, "Congress would have folded like a cheap suit" if Obama had vetoed the bill and sent a strong message of change, as he should have. Instead, what we got from Obama was the perpetual promise of the alcoholic, "I'll stop drinking tomorrow." Weak and pathetic. The president seemed to know he was diminishing himself by signing this bill, so he did it in private, with none of his usual pomp and circumstance.
In addition, Obama, after being critical of President Bush's signing statements in the past, and after saying he was going to limit signing statements THE PREVIOUS DAY, issued, guess what?, a SIGNING STATEMENT on the spending bill.
And so it continues. Obama says one thing, does another. Stay tuned for that CHANGE you were expecting. Maybe he'll get to that next month, after he quits smoking. He'd stop smoking now, but, you know, there just isn't time right now. And this will positively, absolutely be his very last cigarette. Promise.
