Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Obama & the Omnibus hostage-takers - Part 2

Despite all the rhetoric, the speeches and the weekly radio addresses in which President Obama promised to do way with earmarks, the Obama administration on Wednesday advised Congress to pass an omnibus spending bill containing $8 billion in earmarks. An administration source offered up a lame excuse to ABC News as to why the administration had decided to endorse the pork-laden bill.

It should be noted, however, that the President, in the past, has faulted congress for engendering all the earmarks and the pork, but he himself created plenty of those earmarks - not to mention the sweetheart deals the White House made with various CEO's and lawmakers behind closed doors, including the Nebraska Cornhusker bribe, the Pharma deal and various other covert transactions.

Last week, MSNBC reported: "Top Democratic fundraisers and lobbyists with links to the White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money, even though a Chinese company would operate the farm and its turbines would be built in China..."

The aforementioned individuals donated heavily to Obama's Presidential campaign and bundled plenty of dough for Obama.

What's more, as I've noted previously, dozens of former lobbyists and bundlers to Obama's Presidential campaign have been appointed to various positions within the Obama administration.

Clearly, when it comes to making sweetheart deals and catering to cronies, and special interest groups, Obama reigns supreme.

Yesterday, I noted how the President - in a press conference last week - characterized Republicans in congress as hostage-takers who were holding the middle class tax cuts "hostage to the high end tax cuts." And I questioned whether Obama would also label the earmark culprits as hostage-takers who were holding the omnibus bill hostage to their beloved earmarks and pork. I wondered whether Obama would consider overriding or confronting the earmark hoarders:
Will President Obama capitulate to the demands of the hostage-takers? Will he extort billions of taxpayer dollars to pay up the 'earmark' ransom? Will he even bother to use his beloved "hostage" analogy this time around? Or, is this analogy a tactic to be used exclusively to squeeze out money from the taxpayers, and one that must never be used - by the President - to save taxpayers their hard-earned money?...
And today, the White House gave us the answer:

The King of special interests would never even contemplate taking on the spenders, for ultimately, it is Obama himself, who is the ultimate spender.

The President has already created tons of pork, and in doing so, has taken American taxpayer dollars hostage. But sadly, unlike many other hostages, these hostages will never be released. There is no ransom, worth that kind of money, that can possibly free them. They belong to Obama. And they are his to keep.

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