As I review the omnibus spending bill that avoids a government shutdown in the middle of a recession (when, arguably, we need a functioning government the most) and brings all sorts of money from other states to support projects South Dakota couldn't do on its own, I also note President Obama's initial push for bipartisanship seems to be working. Last month, his stimulus package won the votes of only three Republican senators and zero Republican representatives. The omnibus spending bill signed into law yesterday won the votes of a whopping eight Republican senators and sixteen Republican reps.
Whoo-hoo! At that rate, President Obama should every Republican voting with him by Christmas!
Of course, President Obama also lost some Dem votes on the omnibus bill, so by the same logic, he'll need to switch parties by Labor Day.
But for now, hip hip, bipartisanship! ;-)
Obama should have honored his campaign promise to go over these things line by line and veto pork. I don't care if the bill came up last year or this year. I heard this morning they tried to pass it last year but were blocked by the Dems. I personally don't care. I DO care about reckless spending, and that is what this bill was. He could have stripped out all the pork (vetoed) and left the money to keep the gov't fucntioning. But...he didn't. Typical politician. He has a very screwed up way of dealing with earmarks from here on out too, so that will be interesting to watch.
ReplyDeleteBipartisan? I don't think so. The Reps that voted for it had their own pork in the bill and figured they might as well vote for it. Cowards!
Actually this was a bipartisan demonstration of pork belly politics, nothing more. And Obama once again failed to live up to one of his hallmark campaign promises.
Anon 2:49; are whining about spend that was less than 2% of the entire bill? Get real; get a life.
ReplyDeleteIf it wasn't for earmarks small states like SD couldn't bring home federal money, much less out-sized federal money.
I don't care if they are a small amount. This was one of Obama's sound bite campaign promises, and he lied. And they add up. I'm not happy with a lot of the rest of the reckless spending by Congress and Obama either. And I can whine all I want about this spending - I'm paying for that right!!
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