So much for the kind of government promised by Barack Obama where citizens have a full five days to review and comment on all non-emergency bills on the White House website before they are signed into law! Not only did “We the People” not have an adequate means or opportunity to review the so-call economic stimulus bill, our representatives in Congress did not have that opportunity.
This 1,434-page bill – the size of the New York, L.A. and Chicago telephone books combined – was simply printed out and distributed. There was no computer disk with a searchable database to make the process easy.
Of course, that process was never meant to be easy. That bill, which contained everything on the liberals’ wish list for the last 50 years, was rammed down our throats!
But what about this president? He was supposed to be above all that. It took less than three weeks for him to break faith with the American people. Why did he travel all the way to Denver to sign the bill? To get away from the stench of all that pork frying!
We now know that the one thing that gets stimulated by the bill is the government – the country’s No. 1 growth industry. To add insult to injury, most of the spending will not occur this year or next. The economy will have to heal itself and then the hardworking citizens in the private sector will be picking up the tab for generations.
However, the fact that this money will not be spent in a timely and temporary fashion is really good news. We have an opportunity to keep much of this money from going out the door. All we have to do is put the congressmen and senators who voted for this thing on the unemployment line.
The 2010 elections are just around the corner, and every member of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate has to stand for re-election. That means the money that has not been spent can be reclaimed!
There needs to be a sea change in Congress, the kind that occurred in 1994 that put Republicans in control of Congress after 40 years in the congressional wilderness and the kind that occurred in 2006 after Republicans lost their way.
This is not about parties; this is about good government, and the only way to get good government is by being willing to fire any representative who is unwilling to balance the nation’s books – in other words, any representative or senator who spends more than we take in.
When it comes time for re-election, they all talk like fiscal conservatives, but keeping tabs on them is not as hard as one would imagine. Every year the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation delivers a report card on Congress, and, if you can read down and across, you will know instantly if your congressman and senators are keepers. If you can read your child’s report card, you can read this one.
I want to take you back to 1995. One of the first things the new leaders of Congress did was pass rescissions. They simply refused to spend money on wasteful projects or programs that had been appropriated the year before. That was one of the finest hours in Congress!
A year later, President Clinton shut down the government twice. Spending was out-of-control, and the new Republican Congress was doing the right thing by fighting for a budget that would reach balance. Unfortunately, “We the People” were not paying attention. The Washington Post did a poll that showed that the public was unaware of the stakes. The Republicans took the blame for those shutdowns. After that, they lost their nerve and began spending like, well, congressmen.
This is wrong! Unfortunately, it took most of us 10 years to realize the Republicans had gotten off track and do something about it. When the Democrats took over, they promised to get spending under control, but it has only gotten worse. The only way it will stop is if we are willing to fire our representatives every two years if necessary.
If you had an employee who was stealing from you, you would fire that employee. Why would you do otherwise with your employees in Washington? Plug into the National Taxpayers Union and start receiving those report cards on Congress. Then, be prepared to do the right thing in 2010.
The money that hasn’t been spent can be reclaimed!
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WND Staff