I Said No More Earmarks, Starting .... Now! OK .... Now! I Really Mean It This Time!
On the campaign trail, Obama promised that he would not tolerate earmarks and pork projects. Well, he is finally putting his foot down. No more pork!
"[Such bills] will not happen when the president has the full legislative and appropriations process in place," Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told CNN's "State of the Union with John King."Of course, this comes only after passing a trillion dollars worth of pork, including some 10,000 earmark items.
Obama will keep his promise to not allow pork and earmarks -- starting, uh, tomorrow!
A Yankee Swap in King Obama's Court
As for foreign policy, Team Obama has shown its cluelessness in two "presents" given to foreign dignitaries.
When British Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to Washington to visit Obama, Brown delivered a set of very thoughtful and meaningful gifts for Obama, including a wooden pen-holder made of wood from the anti-slave ship Gannet.
In exchange, Obama gave Brown some DVDs -- a gift that the London Daily Mirror called "as exciting as a pair of socks." Obama must have dispatched some intern to the Wal-Mart for a few flicks as a gift to a man blind in one eye and going blind in the other, who might not be able to play the DVDs as European players use a different format. Classy move from one who is supposed to be the hippest president ever.But, in Obama's defence, Brown is a hard guy to buy for, giving away the cool bomber jacket given by George W. Bush.
Maybe that's why Obama returned to England a loaner bust of Churchill given to us after 9/11.
If you don't like Churchill (and Obama seems to have reason), put the bust in Clinton's little tryst space or force Joe Biden to hold it for awhile over at the Naval Observatory.
At least Obama's team didn't need to figure out what Brown might like for supper. No white tie for this guy:
Has the financial crisis become so bad that the White House could not afford a casserole?But, Obama dispatched someone to the White House gift shop for toy models of the president's helicopter for Brown's kids.
For Instant Peace in the World, Press HERE!
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a puzzling gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavro a big red "Reset" button, so the U.S. and Russia can "reset our relationship." Clinton and Lavro then pushed the button together.
You've got to be kidding me! Next, Clinton will stop by Staples on the way to a Palestinian/Israeli negotiation to pick up a couple of "That Was Easy" buttons. Yikes.Besides, I thought we didn't want the Russians pressing the red button.
But, I Am Soooooo Tired!
But, all these gaffes and rookie mistakes can be excused because Obama and his skeletal team are tired.
Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.Poor baby. And to think, people used to make fun of President Reagan's reported napping. Sounds like he had the right idea.
Who Knew That Being President was a Full-Time Job?
Being president is not like being a Senator; the president actually has responsibilities!
Oh, but he has so much to do!
Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.How could Obama possibly have known that the President of the United States might have a thing or two on his plate to deal with. And to think, some of us thought Obama didn't have enough experience to be president.
At least he won't fall asleep regarding the War on Terror.
A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".It's just a good thing that nothing important is going on elsewhere in the world, eh?
After all, the Taliban in Afghanistan just need a good talking to. They're basically decent people, too.
Help Wanted. Only Tax Cheats Need Apply
But, it's not Obama's fault. He just hasn't had the chance to hire enough people yet, it seems.
Of the 15 key Treasury Department positions that require Senate confirmation, only one has been filled. Stuart Levey, a leftover from the previous administration, who as under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence...A surprising number of Obama appointees still haven't had a Senate hearing, and most of those aren't even schedule yet.
Besides, Obama and his administration are busy attacking major media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer. How dare you question the president!
But, I guess that's what happens when you hire the PC Guy to be your press secretary.
Does anybody have a Reset button for the November elections?
4 comments:
According to your link, though, what Obama was promising wasn't a zero-tolerance on earmarks policy as president, but rather to not request any earmarks for the remainder of his time in the Senate. (Presumably this was to indulge the grumpy old man from Arizona.) As president, of course, he has nothing to do with earmarks, which are requested by members of congress, Democrats and Republicans alike.
But help me out with the thing I don't understand about all this earmark rage: eliminating earmarks doesn't save a single penny. All an earmark does is allocate a portion of an appropriation to a specific project (i.e., "of the billion dollars to be spent on federal highways, $10 million is to be spent on the construction of a highway overpass in Waco, Tx," or whatever). Absent that earmark, the highway appropriation is still a billion bucks, but federal bureaucrats decide how to spend the money. So the people who are screaming about earmarks would take that discretion away from the people's elected representatives and place it in the hands of anonymous Washington bureaucrats - which is fine, except I notice a lot of overlap between the anti-earmark crowd and the "the American people know how to spend their own money better than anonymous Washington bureaucrats" crowd, yet these two positions would seem to be diametrically opposed and hard to reconcile - though I'm probably missing the logic here, which is why I ask.
An earmark is an addition to a bill that has nothing to do with the bill itself. It is usually done as an enticement to get affected legislators to vote for the bill.
For example, in the current Omnibus spending bill, we are told that this money is "necessary for the ongoing functions of government" through September. Fine.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/11/obama-earmark-reform-rema_n_173873.html
But attached to this bill, one of 9,000 examples, is money to expand the JFK Library in Boston.
How is expanding the JFK Library "necessary for the ongoing functions of government"? It's not.
That is an ear-mark. Perhaps it is a good idea; I don't know. If it is, vote for the appropriation on its own, so that we can see exactly who voted for the appropriation and who didn't. It gives us more say, in that we can call out reps and tell them specifically not to vote for a specific appropriation, rather than for an omnibus spending package.
You might be right that he explicitly did not call for a total ban on earmarks, but he let a lot of people believe that:
"U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today (3/10/08) released the following statement on his decision to cosponsor an amendment offered by Senator Jim DeMint to implement a one-year moratorium on all congressional earmarks during the FY 2009 appropriations cycle."
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_with_antieark_mccain_as.html
They all do it. Don't make it right...
Obama could call for a total ban on earmarks if he likes. He could also call for the Second Coming of Christ. as president, he has about as much control over one as he does the other.
If the standard is that every individual item in the bill must be "necessary for the ongoing functions of the government," that's not going to leave a whole lot. I think the government of the United States would continue to function if we got rid of federal meat inspectors, but that doesn't mean it's a waste of money.
Anyway, I'm more interested in the 98 percent of the bill that isn't earmarks, all of which will be directed by federal bureaucrats. Seems a riper target for dissection.
Obama's got one tool to defeat earmarks, and it happens to be a three-letter word: V-E-T-O.
While meat inspection could reasonably be considered under the federal operations budget, the feds could function without termite research, walrus rehabilitation, pig manure, mosquito trapping research, swine odor and manure management, the Pleasure Beach water taxi, and the renovation of the façade of the Italian American Museum in New York City.
Now, if we get into a discussion on federal bureaucracy and their spending patterns, we might come dangerously close to agreement on something.
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