Promises and Bailouts

During the salad days of hope and change Obama said the following:



Specifically:

To reduce bills rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them, Obama "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

They are working the problem, though.

Note the use of 'non-emergency' as a clarification, which unfortunately applies to the current stimulus/recovery/pork/political payback bill. A few highlights:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

operations, research, and facilities

For an additional amount for ‘Operations, Research, and Facilities’, $400,000,000, for habitat restoration and mitigation activities.

Not sure how this money would possibly create more jobs but it would certainly stimulate a bunch of NOAA departments. Reject.

And here's the much-ballyhooed government vehicle UAW payback provision:

..a plan for expenditure of the funds that details the current inventory of the Federal fleet owned by the General Services Administration, as well as other Federal agencies, and the strategy to expend these funds to replace a portion of the Federal fleet with the goal of substantially increasing energy efficiency over the current status, including increasing fuel efficiency and reducing emissions:

It would be nice to know more specifics but alas, it appears the bill gives the Vehicle Fleet people at the GSA 90 days to develop a post-passage plan. Are they going to flip the entire fleet immediately or wait for the normal replacement cycle (a couple of years) before buying the new hybrids?

If the idea is to replace at normal cycle then there's nothing wrong with the idea, although it shouldn't take an extra 600 million. If not, then it would be logical to ask why. Retiring perfectly good vehicles just to replace them with brand new hybrids would seem to be a colossal waste of taxpayer money, not to mention a flood on the used car market. So many questions. We need some answers.

THE AXE 2/7/09

Here's a list of what was cut from the BBQ bailout sandwich that made 3 GOP Senators switch over to the dark side.

Notice they cut 100 million from NOAA, which still leaves them an extra 300 million. According to their site their yearly budget request for FY09 was 4 billion, a 200 million increase over FY08. So this is nothing more than an extra appropriation.

JOBS AMERICANS STILL WON'T DO? 2/7/09

According to WND the e-verify provisions placed into the House's stimulus bill have disappeared from the Senate version, apparently in response to some complaints from illegal immigration advocacy groups. So, we're on the verge of passing a bill that would transfer federal money to those brazenly breaking the law, right?

Well, maybe not. Obama recently signed an order that prohibits non-union construction companies from bidding on government projects. The fallout from this might be quite interesting.