You will have to excuse the limited posts this week. I have spent the last few days (in my spare time) going over the binge spending problem that plagues Washington. Obama just signed another spending bill that increased overall discretionary spending by 11.4%. The bill also contained over 5,000 earmarks worth about $3.9 billion. The House also passed a second stimulus worth another $155 billion. I wonder if the President will sign that one as well. It would not surprise me. He really does not understand that you cannot spend your way out of a recession. He is so engrained with the liberal tax and spend philosophy that he called out Congressional Republicans last week. Or he thought he was. He told them that every single economist he had talked to told him we had to spend more money so he challenged them to come up with some that don’t believe that. It really wasn’t that hard of a challenge. Within a week Rep. John Boehner released a list of 222 economists from across the country that said just that. Here is the list. They also agreed that the Stimulus, which the administration still boasts as having saved our economy, was in fact a failure. Just like their denial of Climategate, they are in denial that their philosophy and policies just do not work.
Let’s take a look at our government’s most recent spending. Here is a link to H.R. 3288, which the President just signed (after you click on the link, scroll to the very bottom where you will see H3288; then click on “enrolled version” on the far right of the row) It should only take you a couple of minutes to start to see the problem. A quick scroll reveals over 500 searchable paragraphs describing how they are giving away your tax dollars. It immediately shows a few things. First, the federal government has gotten way too large. Secondly, welfare is a predominate theme in all the departments. And lastly, President Obama and those who voted for these appropriations made no effort whatsoever to curb our deficit or their spending. None whatsoever.
For those who love summaries, here is a conference report for the bill. Like I mentioned before it increased the discretionary spending for these 6 departments by 11.4%. That is nearly $46 billion that could have been saved if they just would not have increased their spending over last year. But somehow they could not even manage that.
And if you wonder why…Just take this sample of some of the line items in the bill
- Corporation for National and Community Service $857,021,000 (remember the IG Walpin controversy)
- National coordinator for health information technology $42,331,000
- Minority Business Resource Center outreach activities, $3,074,000
- Capital investments that will reduce the energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions of their public transportation systems, $75,000,000,
- Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant program $13,000,000
- Native American Housing Block Grants program $700,000,000
- Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program $335,000,000
- Minority business development $31,500,000
- Low income energy assistance $5,100,000,000
- Child Care for low income, $2,127,081,000
- Tenant-Based Rental Assistance program, $18,200,000,000
- Community Development and Planning, $8,500,000,000
- Project-Based Rental Assistance, $8,300,000,000
And I stopped counting the civil rights offices funded seemingly in every department.
You can see how government’s efforts to help have ballooned into uncontrollable spending. Once the government steps in and funds something, it never goes away, it just gets bigger. People become dependent on it and then it becomes another entitlement that is the ‘responsibility of the federal government’ to provide. When bad economic times hit, the people that have now become dependent on government assistance need it even more. And so the cycle becomes even worse. This is the basic problem of these programs and it will be the same with healthcare, which a few Senators were bought off to support over the weekend.
In addition the increased spending, I have a problem with many social issues included in this spending bill. Here are some of those.
- They lifted the restriction on local D.C. funds to be used to pay for abortions in the District, without any limitations
- Removes the ban on the use of federal funds for needle exchange programs in D.C.
- Removes the ban on legalizing marijuana in D.C.
- Removes the ban on the use of federal funds for domestic partnership benefits in D.C.
- The D.C. scholarship program has been killed (Yes, the community organizer himself, a protector of the poor, killed this program…talking about hypocrisy)
- Title X Family Planning: Provides $317.4 million for Title X family planning programs. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is the largest recipient of Title X.
- Eliminates funding for abstinence education, and creates a new $110 million program for “comprehensive sex education.”
- It provides a total of $7.78 billion for global health programs, including $648.5 million for international family planning and reproductive health
- Appropriates $55 million for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). I would like to clarify that language was put in this time saying that it cannot be used in China and not used for abortions. But then again it says the funding is for family planning and reproductive services in the same provisions. (code word terms for organizations such as planned parenthood for abortion…when giving speeches to them during the campaign, Obama specifically used these words when describing his support for abortion coverage in any healthcare legislation)
So as you can see, D.C. is quickly becoming our Sodom and Gomorrah. But equally as troubling during this spending spree is Obama’s lack of leadership and failure to take responsibility for the spending that he is signing into law. He continues to break promises for earmark reform and a fiscally responsible government while blaming others. His comments after signing the spending bill were typical. The legislation is not perfect, but he had to go ahead and sign it to keep the government running. The bottom line is that because he has congress pushing healthcare and cap and trade (among other things), they do not have the time to do their actual job of appropriating funds to keep the government running. It is a shared responsibility of the Democratic led majority in Congress and President Obama. Doing things at the last moment ’so I have to sign it’ is not an excuse for excess spending. And personally I do not believe it was done this way by accident.
President Obama has signed over 10,000 earmarks into law this year despite his promises and rhetoric. (He promised 1994 levels of 1,318). In fact, since the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, they have been responsible for three of the five highest earmark years in American history. Obama’s administration says they are making progress, but the facts show otherwise. There is no change in Washington unless you count what our money is being spent on.
It was also leaked by one news outlet that Obama’s solution is to create a commission to look at the excess spending. This commission would look at how to cut spending and raise taxes to address the deficit. My response to this is simple. Obama needs to show some leadership instead of offloading his responsibilities to a commission. He and his many administration cohorts are Ivy League educated. They are fully capable of balancing a budget if they truly wanted to. Or at least get us moving in the correct direction. They have done neither. They are in fact going in the opposite direction. Even offering billions more at the Copenhagen conference to developing countries to address a global warming crisis that does not exist.
It is evident to me that their desire to push a liberal agenda is more important to them than our county’s financial future. Whether they understand the consequences of their excessive spending or not can be debated, but fiscal responsibility cannot. Just look at the numbers. Unlike this administration, they do not lie.
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