So now that The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has hit the American people, the House decided that while they were at it, let's go ahead and add even more programs and pet projects into the newest version of the "omnibus" spending bill. I mean, when you have already spent nearly $800,000,000,000, (yes folks, that is alot of zeroes), then what is another $410,000,000,000? For you non-math majors, that is over 1.2 trillion dollars... for effect, 1,200,000,000,000. In fact, our federal government this year will run a deficit of over 1 trillion dollars. Could you imagine if we as consumers ran deficits that great? Actually, % wise, some of us probably are, but hey, we are learning how to spend from our elected leaders, so I guess that makes it ok.... right.
What makes me the maddest of all though is the amount of pork, earmarks, waste, BS, whatever you want to call it, that this bill contains. According to the Taxpayer for Common Sense, the bill contains over 8,500 earmarks for special projects that total almost $8,000,000,000 in spending.
http://www.taxpayer.net/resources.php?category=&type=Project&proj_id=1961&action=Headlines%20By%20TCS
And according to my favorite talking head Glenn Beck (5pm on Fox News every weekday. Watch it and learn something new), nearly 60% of the pork represents Democrat pet projects. That means that 40% of the pork belongs to none other than the conservative-minded, small government chanting REPUBLICANS!!!!!!! They make me sick. Bobby Jindal goes before the nation Tuesday to give the Repub response to Obama's address, and specifically talks about the Republicans being the party of change to a smaller, more efficient federal government, and then two days later we read about the passed budget. I am disgusted with all of them. Except for my congressman, Tom Price, who was one of the few House members to officially commit to zero pork projects. Good for him and the others who have a backbone, but I'd like to see the rest of those hypocritical goons booted out of office.
And while a little pet project here or there may seem to be reasonable, it is downright wrong at its very essence. Why should my tax dollars fund a nature preserve in southern Mississippi? (one of the Republican earmarks in this bill) If that city or town or county wants a nature preserve, then raise the money locally. Put it up for a referendum and let the local taxpayers decide if they really want the preserve that badly instead of trying to hide it in a monstrous bill that most congressmen won't even read.
I could harp on this topic for hours to come, but its Saturday. Enough for now. Have a great weekend people. Go out and run up your credit cards today. I'm sure your dear Congressman will find a way to bail you out too.
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