According to President Obama, this stimulus bill is the only thing standing between America and an economic catastrophe.
I don’t care what your political persuasion is, there is no way any clear thinking American cannot be outraged by these stories below. This entire process has been a disgrace and has demonstrated with clarity that our new president is no leader. In fact, I think we can say with a great deal of supporting evidence, that he is a solid gold plated phony.
Hope, change, openness and transparency. What BS. This is not a new kind of politics. It’s not even politics as usual. It’s politics at its worst.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D.-N.J.)(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) predicted on Thursday that none of his Senate colleagues would “have the chance” to read the entire final version of the $790-billion stimulus bill before the bill comes up for a final vote in Congress.
“No, I don’t think anyone will have the chance to [read the entire bill],†Lautenberg told CNSNews.com.
SURPRISE! Dems Break Promise: Stimulus Bill to Floor Friday
In a press conference Thursday, the House Republican leadership spoke candidly about being kept out of the House-Senate conference on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid so-called “economic stimulus†bill. They confirmed they had not yet seen the text of the bill as of 4 p.m.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he was unsure how many Democrats would vote with Republicans again on this bill but that he thought Republicans “may get a few†Democrats to side with them. The fact that the Demos have now broken their promise to have the public able to see the bill for 48 hours may drive more Dems into the Republican camp.
“[I] don’t know, ‘cause they haven’t seen the bill either,†Boehner said.
Democrats Delay Bill Release to Conceal Details
Democratic staffers released the final version of the stimulus bill at about 11 pm last night after delaying the release for hours to put it into a format which people cannot “search†on their home computers.
Instead of publishing the bill as a regular internet document — which people can search by “key words†and otherwise, the Dems took hours to convert the final bill from the regular searchable format into “pdf†files, which can be read but not searched.
UPDATE: Obama breaks 7 different promises in stimulus bill debate
1. Make government open and transparent.
2. Make it “impossible” for Congressmen to slip in pork barrel projects.
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. (Even Congressional Republicans shut out.)
4. No more secrecy.
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a bill.
6. You’ll know what’s in it.
7. We will put every pork barrel project online.
Hat Tip: Sweetness & Light