Obama's 2009 Stimulus Bill

Pop the cork on the champagne! Invite friends over for finger foods and a barbecue. No, not because the dreadful "economic stimulus" bill passed, but because we have now seen Obama break his first major campaign promise. Welcome to the White House, Barack.

During the presidential campaign President Obama boasted that his would be America's "most transparent" administration ever. And to that end he declared that for any major piece of legislation that comes to his desk he would allow the public five days to read and review and ask questions about that legislation before being signed. Congress passed the stimulus bill on Friday, February 13. He is going to sign it Tuesday, February 17. So I pulled out my handy-dandy calculator and that adds up to less than four days (and that includes a weekend and a holiday).

Now you and I both know that first of all that is not how our legislative system is supposed to work. The people elect folks to represent them and they are to be responsible and carry out the principles of the Constitution and self-government on behalf of their constituents. We will hold them accountable by our voting. But even still, when a man makes a promise you would hope that he has the integrity to keep it whether or not the promise was necessary. Let us not kid ourselves. Let us call this campaign promise what it really was: political hype and the tickling of gullible voters' ears. He said it to get elected.

Of course, this is not the first piece of legislation on which he has reneged on this particular promise. Remember the socialistic child health care bill that was signed into law a several weeks ago? Same situation. It passed and then bang-zoom it was signed into law by President Obama. But I gave him a pass on that since he did say that his promise referred to "major legislation." I guess he gets to decide what is major and what is not. But surely by all accounts this behemoth stimulus bill would fall squarely into the "major" category.