Barack Obama's Spending Spree
During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama lashed out at Republicans for abandoning their limited government principles. Once elected he said he'd be "cutting more than I'm spending." So how does Obama measure up to these promises in his first 50 days? So far they've already passed two massive spending bills totaling nearly $1.2 trillion: The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-better known as the Stimulus Bill-and the $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations bill! That's $24 billion a day, or one billion dollars an hour! We spoke out against big government under George Bush and the Republicans, but Obama is making them look like Ron Paul.
Here are just a few of the outrageous programs the government is wasting your tax dollars on:
STIMULUS
-
$50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts
-
Billions to the Far Left: Included in the stimulus are $2 billion for the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants, and $100 million to Community Development Funds-Radical left wing and open borders groups like La Raza and ACORN are all eligible for these funds.
-
Welfare: Much of the stimulus spending is not just a one-time cost, but creates permanent programs. This includes $800 billion in means tested programs over the next decade. The stimulus also reverses the successful welfare reform act by rewarding state governments for keeping people on Welfare.
-
Big brother health care: In addition to over $100 billion in health care funding the Stimulus also increases big brother's control over health care by allowing the government to control access over medical treatments and private online medical records. Big brother health care: In addition to over $100 billion in health care funding the Stimulus also increases big brother's control over health care by allowing the government to control access over medical treatments and private online medical records.
WHAT'S NOT IN THE STIMULUS
Infrastructure improvements: The stimulus was promoted as an investment in our infrastructure, but only 5.9% of the money actually goes to transportation improvements.
E-verify: The Senate repeatedly blocked attempts to require that all contractors who receive stimulus money use E-Verify-the only system that will prevent them from hiring illegal aliens. Without E-Verify 300 thousand stimulus jobs in construction alone will go to illegal aliens.
Serious Buy America: In addition to giving stimulus jobs to illegal aliens, we also are shipping them overseas. Despite a lot of carping by the globalists about a "Buy American" provision that governs some of the raw materials bought with Stimulus money, the condition is riddled with loopholes. Also contained in the bill is a provision that annuls the "Buy American" language if the administration deems it inconsistent with the WTO, NAFTA, or any other of our pacts. Also, the head of any federal agency may disregard "Buy American" conditions if he deems them "inconsistent with the public interest."
OMNIBUS BUDGET
Record Breaker: The $410 billion waste of taxpayer dollars makes this the largest domestic spending bill in history.
Pay raise for politicians: Congress voted to increase their own budget by 10% and voted down an amendment to scrap automatic pay raises for themselves.
Repetition: According to the Heritage Foundation, the budget includes 342 economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, and 90 early childhood development programs.
EARMARKS
Shortly before taking office, Obama said, "We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert projects without review." But his Omnibus Budget has nearly 9,000 earmarks totaling over $12.8 billion. Here are a few examples:
$1,791,000 for Swine Odor and Manure Management Research
$200,000 for a tattoo removal program
$5,813,000 to the Ted Kennedy Institute
$75,000 for a Baseball Diversity Foundation
1.2 TRILLION IS JUST THE BEGINNING
The two spending bills are just peanuts compared to Obama's proposed budget for 2009. Totaling $3.4 trillion, it is the greatest increase in non-defense spending since the New Deal. The programs created will raise the federal deficit by over $5 trillion bringing it to a total of over $15 trillion. It has not been submitted to Congress, so we don't have all the dirty details, but what we've seen so far is bad enough. Here are just a couple of items:
Taxing or Saving? In attempting to downplay the costs, the budget classifies $1.4 billion in tax increases as "savings."
Prelude to socialized medicine: Obama proposes to spend $630 billion to prepare for "fundamental reform of our health care system." We know what that means!
Even more money to the Far Left: As if they didn't get enough money in the Stimulus, the budget has another $4.5 billion in the shady Community Development Block Grants that gets funneled to La Raza and friends.
Money for failed programs: The budget allocates $2.1 billion to the failed Head Start program on top of the $5 billion it gets in the stimulus. It also gives $1 billion to the Affordable Housing Trust that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were to run before they tanked.
More bailouts: The budget sets aside $250 billion for future bailouts of failed financial institutions like AIG.
New Social Security: Everyone knows our current system is bankrupt. Instead of fixing it, Obama proposes to create yet another entitlement called the Automatic Workplace Pension.
