Running Scared

It's getting fun to watch as "The One" finds out that he may need to scratch January 21, 2009 out of his anointment appointment book.

White women and independents are flocking over to the McCain Palin ticket, and Joe Biden won't be helping by telling people that her being elected would be step backwards for women.

Barack Obama is in full defensive mode, not knowing how to react to the media that's suddenly being somewhat warm to the opponent, and realizing that a novice senator with no record, and a 35 year Washington insider aren't exactly "change agents".

The problem for him is his lack of a record is starting to show. While Palin can claim some legitimate (and some questionable) reform victories in Alaska, and McCain has a record of bucking his party, Obama's campaign folks claimed are grasping at straws for anything that might look like reform.

Sunday David Axelrod got caught with his pants down by Chris Wallace of Fox News, when he claimed that Obama's support of ethics reform and nuclear non-proliferation were items that "went against his party". Wallace was kind enough to point out to him that both of those items were passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, no roll call needed. That's not reform, that's following the herd.

While Obama has decided that Alaska keeping the "bridge to nowhere" money is bad; even if it's now being used for needed infrastructure improvements instead of the bridge; he voted for that money, twice.

My guess is that in the next 3 to 4 weeks we'll start seeing McCain ads about earmarks, that Obama will have to defend himself, and fellow Democrats against. Remember that in 2006 one of the hallmarks of the party taking over congress was that earmarks would get cut down.

Instead, last year Obama asked for $330 million, including money that went to the hospital his wife works at and companies represented by Joe Biden's lobbyist family members.

Read The Full Post!

McCain on the Farm Bill

John McCain has a great editorial piece in today's Chicago Tribune on why the recently passed Farm Bill needs to get vetoed by President Bush. Keep in mind, it passed both houses with enough votes to override a veto, but that doesn't mean it should just get a free pass.

Keep in mind, we aren't in the "Farm Aid" days, when cripplingly high interest rates, along with low commodity prices were killing farms left and right. Today we have low interest rates, very high prices for most every farm product out there, and of course Congress decided that we still need subsidies. On top of that, the majority of them go to corporate farms, not the family farm everyone worries about.

McCain not only calls out congress for the bill, and the billions in earmarks attached to it, but also Barack Obama. He gets Obama for supporting the farm bill, at the same time complaining about level playing fields in other areas of trade. (Note to Obama, this is a losing battle to try and fight.)

Give it a read, it's a nice piece of work, not through the filter of a reporter, instead from the candidate.

Read The Full Post!

The Trough Shall Be Full!

As Congress passed it's budget plans last night one thing was made certain. Earmarks are here to stay. Ignore all that stuff about reforming the process that you hear in 2006 when the Democrats were going to clean up Congress' wasteful ways. In the Senate only 5 of them voted for a 1 year moratorium on pet project spending, 2 of those five are running for President, and knew they'd be bludgeoned if they didn't.

The Pelosi lead House, and Harry Reid's Senate voted to keep their earmarks, and they'll probably "bundle" them again in the next budget, to make sure that their new, transparent process is anything but.

But hey, when you vote to raise taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, why would you want to close the feeding trough? The folks in Congress see that huge increase in (Congress's) income as a way to make everyone happy, and keep themselves in power. Everyone will get a bridge to nowhere and two new parks! And they see you, typical voter, as too stupid to remember the promises that they made less than 2 years ago to fix this process.

Read The Full Post!

I Thought They Fixed This

I was kind of surprised tonight to read that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had committed to a 1 year moratorium on earmarks. Earmarks are those little riders stuck in bills to get some federal money sent to your state or district.

Now someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Democrats who took over Congress in January last year promise to fix this then? What happened? Oh yeah, they took control of the purse, and like the GOP before them, who took power wanting to curb spending found out how easy that credit card is to use when you don't pay the bill.

According to the Associated Press, Clinton worked through $342 MILLION and Obama was responsible for $100 MILLION dollars in earmarks in the fiscal year 2008 budget out of a total of $15 Billion. That puts Obama's earmark haul at nearly 4 times the congressional average, and Clinton at 12 times the average. Clinton's total haul in 2002-2006, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense was $2.2 BILLION!

I'd tell you how much Obama earmarked in 2005 and 2006, but he hasn't ever released the records of it. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times wrote about his lack of cooperation on this and other fronts a few weeks ago.

To have them both come out now, and claim that earmarks are bad only proves how stupid the average voter is. They'll buy it hook line and sinker that the two of them are somehow above them, and suddenly want to curb waste.

GOP Candidate John McCain didn't really have to commit to it, he claims to have "never" asked for an earmark. Some folks on the left point to two items, one in 2003 and one in 2006 they considered earmarks. Total, $24 million. Let's face it, if $24 million in 24 years in Congress is all he's ever earmarked, he's a rank amateur. He should take lessons from the Democratic candidates for President to find out how to really spend our money.

Read The Full Post!