Democrats Pass $400 Billion Spending Bill With 8000 Earmarks

 Are you ready for the next round of spending? I sure hope so because the Democrats sure are. Yesterday the house passed a spending bill of over $400 billion, this is in addition to the $1 trillion “stimulus” package that Obama recently signed.

 According to Florida Congressman Bill Posey in this statement  about the spending bill, it includes 8000 earmarks.

Washington, Feb 25 – The House of Representatives passed an omnibus spending bill which will cost the American taxpayers $410 billion dollars, an 8.3% increase ($32 billion) over last year’s (2008) funding levels. Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) opposed the measure which totaled more than 3,000 pages long with the committee report and included almost 8,000 earmarks.

“In just the past four weeks, Congress has approved over $1.5 Trillion in new spending, most of it borrowed and done through a closed process,” said Congressman Posey. “Now we’re considering a $410 billion omnibus bill and again, no member is allowed to offer changes. This is such an irresponsible way to spend taxpayer dollars.”

House leaders, who design the rules under which legislation comes to the floor, prohibited any member from offering amendments to the omnibus, forcing members to take it or leave it. Posey suggested that part of the problem was allowing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to be spent in omnibus form. “By rolling up nine departments into one gigantic omnibus spending bill, it’s almost as if those who put this legislation together don’t want folks to understand where the money is going.”

 President Obama claimed that he would not pass spending bills with earmarks in them. But we have seen what his promise on the issue of earmarks is worth when he signed the stimulus bill. Nothing.

 While technically the stimulus bill contained no earmarks, not in the traditional sense, the bill was ladened with wasteful spending and Obama signed it. He played a semantics game and was able to sign a bill that was full of wasteful spending while not breaking his promise to veto earmark filled legislation. A pig by any other name is still a pig, to quote the president when talking about Sarah Palin, and the stimulus bill reeked of pigdom.

 But now President Obama will not have the luxury of hiding behind words, the earmarks are there, what will Obama do? It is time for the president to put our money where his mouth is. It is time for him to stop talking and start walking. This president has a special gift, and that gift is the fact that he can do one thing while convincing the American people he is doing the opposite. In other words, he is a gifted con artist.

 Surely President Obama can’t sign a bill with so much wasteful spending, can he? At least he said he wouldn’t.