I recently had to take issue with an adoring Goanetter who claimed we needed a leader like President Obama who "tells it like it is".
Those who consider him The Messiah may not know this, but as recently as last week, President Obama was promising, nay, vowing, that federal spending bills he would sign would have no "earmarks", which are individual spending amounts slipped into bigger bills passed by Congress to benefit pet projects in the lawmaker's district. Obviously, the more powerful the lawmaker the more he or she can slip in. This is also known as "pork barrel" spending, a euphemism for wasteful spending. Now, not even a week later, he will sign a bill that has 8,600 earmarks in it totalling US$7.7 Billion according to an independant watchdog group in his continuing attempt to use vote bank politics. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/01/budget-chief-obama-sign-spending/ Excerpts: President Barack Obama will break a campaign pledge and sign a budget bill laden with millions in lawmakers' pet projects, administration officials said. The House last week passed the measure that would keep the government running through Sept. 30, when the federal budget year ends. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, identified almost 8,600 specially sponsored projects totaling $7.7 billion; Democrats say the number is $3.8 billion. Either way, it is far more than Obama promised as a candidate. [end of excerpts] I have no idea any more when to believe anything the new President says and when not to. Neither do any of his supporters. The message in all this is: Watch what he does, not what he says.
