It was surely an act of hubris for President Obama to ask Congress to approve a $3.6 trillion federal budget for 2010 that runs a trillion-dollars worth of red ink its first year and then projects half-trillion deficits every year thereafter for a decade. Congress has never before been asked to consider spending of such magnitude, not even during wartime. Obama’s budget proposal also included provisions committing the nation to far-reaching policy changes that are certain to drive federal taxes higher, send gasoline and electricity costs soaring, socialize doctors and patients by putting Washington bureaucrats in charge of health care, and make Uncle Sam the Daddy Warbucks of college tuition for everybody. The ultimate result will be a doubling of the national debt, a burden that will fall on our children and grandchildren. In short, this was a budget proposal of historic significance to every living American and for millions yet to be born.
So how did Congress deal with this landmark legislation? The House of Representatives gave opponents exactly 20 minutes to present an alternative, then gaveled the Obama measure to approval. The Senate approved it after considering a handful of amendments. But note that even before the 2010 budget was approved, this Congress had approved spending more than $1.2 trillion, or $24 billion per day. That’s $1 billion every hour since the 111th Congress convened in January. Odds are that not even King Solomon – whose riches dazzled monarchs and tyrants throughout the ancient world – exhausted the fruit of the labor of his subjects and slaves at so breathtaking a pace as this president and this Congress. And they are doing it based on decisions most often made by Democratic leaders behind closed doors, who then run roughshod over the Republican minority. Is this really what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi meant when they promised during the 2006 campaign “the most open and honest Congress ever”? And was Obama simply lying during the 2008 campaign when he promised a “net spending reduction” in Washington?
These actions are not going unnoticed beyond the Washington Beltway. More than 300 Tea (“Taxed Enough Already”) Party protests are planned for April 15 in cities from one end of America to the other. There have already been nearly 100 such protests since before a televised rant by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli about wasteful spending in the Obama economic stimulus package in February. Looks like change may indeed be coming, but it will be far from what Obama, Pelosi and Reid had in mind.
