Congressional Democrats, apparently immune to any sense of irony, used the occasion of President Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit to unveil the most bloated discretionary spending measure ever–a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that is left over from last fall. The Democrats waited until President Obama was in office to move the omnibus bill forward, as President Bush had threatened to veto it.
The bill represents an 8 percent increase over last year’s funding for the same nine appropriations categories. Some of that increase, at least, represents earmarks with which the Democrats have littered the bill–an astonishing 9,000 so far. Press secretary Robert Gibbs was reduced to stammering incoherence when he was asked today about the Congressional Democrats’ utter lack of fiscal sanity:
QUESTION: During the stimulus talks, the president was very firm in saying there could be no earmarks in there at all. Right now, Democratic leaders are crafting this omnibus spending bill of over $410 billion, and there were reports from the Hill that there are over 9,000 earmarks in there already. The president’s talking about fiscal responsibility today. Is he going to be leaning directly on his own Democratic leaders to say, “Cut out these earmarks, or I’ll veto that spending bill”?
GIBBS: I — I have not talked to the president about the individual spending bill that, as I understand it, is largely left over from last year’s session to fund, minus (ph) a continuing resolution to fund — to fund government. I — I think that Congress will take that up.
I have not talked to the president on that. Obviously, he is — there is concern. Everybody has to be involved in — in the sharing of pain in this. There are — when you’re at a $1.2 trillion or $1.3 trillion deficit, an economy where we are, I think it’s everybody’s responsibility to act accordingly and — and — but short of talking to the president specifically on that…
QUESTION: But would he be firm — would he be willing to use his veto pen against the Democratic Congress to back that talk up?
GIBBS: Let me — let me — let me not get ahead of a discussion with him not having seen or not having had laying on his desk what Congress might ultimately send him.
Pigs will fly–to use a metaphor that seems apt under the circumstances–before Barack Obama will do anything to rein in the irresponsibility of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their accomplices among Congressional Democrats.
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