Obama Irritated by Earmarks is Expected to Sign Spending Bill

President Obama irratated over earmarks on his Spending Bill promises changes in the way lawmakers earmark bills with billions of dollars of pork barrel spending such as this current $410 billion Spending Bill on the eve of signing.

President Obama in his presidential campaign promised to rein in congress with their earmarking bills is faced yet with another bill stuffed with pet projects from both Republicans and Democrats. This bill has 7,991 earmarks totaling $5.5 billion in pork. That's not pork it's the whole damn pig! President Obama is expected to take this on by introducing new rules dealing with earmarks Wednesday.

Pork barrel spending is something that congressmen and women have been doing for centuries and will not likely go away anytime soon but we will see what the President proposes today.

Meantime this bill will help some of the nations poor that the Bush administration has ignored for 8 years. As our country's nonprofits struggle to feed a public that is suffering with a recession that has brought about 10% unemployment. This bill will address the burgeoning ranks of the poor. A 14% increase in a program that helps feed women and infants and a 10% increase in a housing program for the nations underprivilaged help to bring life's necessity's denied in our poorest homes but hallelujah the bill denies salary increases for congress that was expected next January 1^st. Welcome Congress to the recession! Now maybe we should move to downsize congress, ship their jobs overseas, and layoff thousands of government workers all while denying them their expenses.

The bill was necessary, as congress has shored up it's spending with an emergency-funding bill designed to expire Wednesday night. If the bill is left unsigned congress will need to reintroduce and pass a bill on Thursday to keep the lights on and government running or else it shuts down on Friday. The signing is expected by the brand new President although he is promising change in this process going forward. This seems to be this administrations tactic to sign the bill in private and discuss process and how to curb earmarks and spending going forward. According to the 2010 budget a 1.8 trillion dollar deficit is expected next year. Holy Cow that's a lot of money to overdraw your account.

Reining in spending is against congress's character so we will see in the future if inflation increases such as 10% for the Amtrak railroad and 13% for the Department of Agriculture continue in light of hard times on Main Street. Why do we taxpayers still allow the subsidy on Amtrak?

The Democrats blame Republicans for the spending by ignoring their responsibilities in the past and Republicans who once supported this package under Bush but was denied by the Democrats in congress are now saying spending is out of control. It looks to be that the Congress can't see the trees for the woods. They run amok placing blame at every turn and concentrate their energies on each other rather then governing for the people to help make their lives better.

Well we will see today if President Obama signs the bill complete with the whole pig spending.

Cite:

Associated Press, Obama to sign bill, push for new rules, March 11, 2009