Restraint, Huh?

Right around the time of the election, I was discussing, with a friend, the fears I had laid out in a few blog posts about having Obama as president with a Democrat-dominated Congress.  Before the election, he was a bit back and forth about whom to support — though it always seemed to me the he leaned toward Obama, and as far as I know, that’s how he voted.  Several of my fears about Obama as president stemmed from the fact that I believed that the Democrats in Congress would now be essentially unchecked, as I did not believe there was any way that Obama would reject any bill his party sent to him.  On top of that, I believed that, now that they could basically run right over any Republican opposition, the Democrats would pass anything and everything that some part of the party has been wanting for years.  My friend, who is very, very intelligent, but perhaps a bit too trusting, told me that he believed that now that they had full control, the Democrats would act in a measured and responsible way, and would be very careful not to overreach.  He was not the only one to say this — many people seemed to believe it, and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said pretty much the same thing, claiming that Congress would now be “more bipartisan.”  I think he also he also trusted that Obama would not let his party run wild.  Basically, he was saying he expected restraint, even though, as I pointed out, there is nothing in our political history on which to base such a hope.

So, now,  with the “stimulus” bill about to pass, directing more than 3/4 of a trillion dollars mostly toward a laundry list of democrat/liberal-favored programs and projects, I have to ask:  Does my friend (or anyone) still think this government is going to exercise restraint?  Remember, this package has nothing whatsoever to do with the regular budget process, which will happen later in the year.  The stimulus is supposed to be about “getting the economy moving again” — not just about spending as much money as possible on pet causes.

There are obvious ways for the government to help spur economic activity by improving the environment in which businesses operate, some of which would require some government spending.  But instead of even considering doing any such things, the Democrats in Congress have instead taken advantage of a desperate situation to ram through hundreds of billions of dollars of defecit spending on just about every government-bloating and left-wing special interest project they could think of.  So much for the “timely,” “targeted” and “temporary” requirements Pelosi once touted.

On the “Republican” side, we have Senator Arlen Specter sounding like a complete moron, when he says he’s voting for the bill because we “cannot afford not to take action.”  Does he honestly think that if this bill didn’t pass, that would be the end of it?  No action would be taken at all?  Knock this pile of crap down, and force the Democrats to come up with a more responsible bill!

And what about President Obama?  He’s doing exactly what I was afraid he’d do.  He left it to Congress to come up with the stimulus plan, and he’s said barely a word about its excesses.  You can be sure that if Republicans still held Congress and put together a big fat lard of a bill spending nearly a trillion dollars on their priorities, he’d be all over the place talking about responsibility.  But maybe he’s too busy “oozing change.”