Trickle Down Poverty

It's all Former President George W. Bush's fault that there are close to 9000 "Earmarks" in the new Omnibus bill passed last week by the Democratically controlled 111th Congress.

That is pretty much how it was spelled out last Sunday (March 1, 2009) on "This Week", with George Stephanopoulos by OMB Director Peter Orszag. "This is last year's business. We want to just move on. Let's get this bill done, get it into law and move forward," Orszag said. This should have been Last year's business?

Who controlled congress last year? If it was last year's business then the Democratic Congress didn't do its job last year. Only Congress can spend money. With the Congressional approval rating at an all time low of nine-percent (9%), is it a wonder that they didn't want to put all those earmarks in place. How low can you go? However, being in re-election mode, why antagonize the voters.

Are they saying that they didn't want to purpose spending legislation because they knew that President Bush would not sign it after all the criticism he was receiving for the runaway spending of the previous Congress?

In my belief, here is what the Pelosi Congress and Reid Senate did, they waited for a friendly signature to ink the pork and earmarks, and, they got it in President Obama. Now that he is giving them what they want, he has to spin it anyway he can. So Orszag is making the talk show circuit and blaming George W. Bush. If they could find a way, they would probably blame him for the Stock Market Crash of 1929. "Last year's business," wasn't Obama in the Senate last year? Why didn't he do last year's business then? It appears last year's business is fast becoming this year's fiasco.

Let us examine some of what earmarks are in this bill; earmarks that the President promised would never leave his office signed. "I will go over every bill line by line and eliminate any earmarks and pork that comes across my desk." Do those words sound familiar? He only repeated them over ten times during his campaign. I imagine that if no one in Congress read the bill why should the president.

One of the provisions in the new bill will eliminate school vouchers in the D.C. area. Disadvantaged families who are trying pull themselves up by the bootstraps and give their children a better education now have to re-enroll them in public schools that have shown to be a failure.

Is the money the government is saving on school vouchers part of the $20 million to study the swamp mouse in California? Maybe it is part of the $200,000 to remove tattoos from gang members in Los Angeles? How about the millions to study pig manure?

And, that is my opinion.

Michael Solomon

Author of "Where Did My America Go?"

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