Posted by
Jim Hunt on Friday, February 06, 2009 8:05:47 AM
Barack Obama is unhappy. His Trillion Dollar spending package is being held up by the mean old Republicans in the Senate and he doesn’t like it. Yesterday in an editorial in the Washington Post and in a speech at the energy department he said that the time for talking is over, it is time for action. Actually I think what he meant was “I won, I won, you have to do what I say when I say!”
Mr. President, we are talking about nearly a TRILLION dollars here. That is over and above the $700 BILLION first bailout, and the TWO TRILLION dollar federal budget. If (more likely when) this monstrosity passes, the government will be taking a larger percentage of GDP than at any time since WWII.
The President wants to be seen as “doing something” about the problem. He doesn’t appear to be concerned about whether it is the right thing to do or not. He also doesn’t seem to care if a few extra hundred billion dollars get wasted as long as the bill gets passed.
Had he actually spent time in the Senate rather than on the campaign trail during his brief stint as Illinois’ junior senator, he would recognize that while the House can ram things through quickly, the Senate is more deliberative. When the bill passed the House despite heavy bi-partisan opposition, it was immediately clear that the bill would have to change drastically to get through the Senate and to get past the people who are growing more and more disenchanted with the bill the more they hear about it.
A more experienced leader would have recognized this immediately and taken action to lead the debate to get the best bill possible through. Instead, he has basically stamped his feet and had a temper tantrum. This, combined with his missteps on his cabinet nominations and the firm rejection of his “open hands” policy by Iran, is not an auspicious start for the young Presidency. While I am not a big fan of Vice President Biden, I think it is time for him to take the President aside and teach him some of the facts of life of Washington before this gets even uglier than it already is. Barack Obama is our president and will be for nearly four more years. He has a lot to learn.
God Bless America