During Bush’s first three years in office, spending for domestic programs, excluding defense and homeland security, increased a total of just under 25%.  Republicans have taken over for Democrats as the party of “big government”.  What is really sickening is that it’s all money we don’t have, we are mortgaging our children’s future to the Chinese, as we borrow more from them everyday.

Under President Bush, discretional spending has increased at a rate not seen since the 1960’s under Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs during the Vietnam War.  Bush has just announced he intends to “freeze” spending next year and hold increases to just 1%.  The trouble is, he said this year’s discretional spending would be limited to 4%, and with the bill just passed yesterday it is now at 9%.  More than double what he promised. 

This total lack of fiscal discipline over the past three years shows that our government is without responsible leadership.  Talk about liberal, there is no “conservative” in the Whitehouse as far as I’m concerned. 

Yesterday’s passage of another spending bill, this one topping out at $373 billion, flagrantly illustrates the out of control spending by our Federal Government under this Republican controlled Congress.  This bill had another 7,932 earmarks for vote buying pet projects (read “pork barrel”) attached to it, costing taxpayers close to $11 billion dollars.  This is just plain ludicrous, and I’m hoping that it may finally become so obvious that voters can’t ignore it.  Conservative Republicans are no longer ignoring it, they are furious that Bush hasn’t used his veto power even once in the past three years.

According to this article;  National leaders of six conservative organizations this week broke with the Republican majorities in the House and Senate and criticized Mr. Bush as well for overspending.  "The Republican Congress is spending at twice the rate as under Bill Clinton, and President Bush has yet to issue a single veto," said Paul M. Weyrich, national chairman of Coalitions for America. "I complained about profligate spending during the Clinton years* but never thought I'd have to do so with a Republican in the White House and Republicans controlling the Congress." *Clinton had a budget surplus

If you watched the State of the Union address, you heard all the new vote-grabbing social initiatives President Bush laid out for the coming election year, how could he possibly start new social programs and “freeze” spending at the same time?  I’ll tell you how, he has no intention of doing either one.  He will depend on responsible members of congress to block his free-for-all spending so he can claim he tried to pass new programs but wasn’t allowed.  Remember you are talking about a guy who wants to put a man on Mars.

On top of the huge costs of two wars, you can’t cut taxes and increase spending 25% at the same time without plunging us deeply into debt.  If you want lower taxes you need to cut your spending.  I don’t want lower taxes at the expense of future generations.

Our annual deficit is near $500 billion and it will get much worse.  The Pentagon is already saying they need another 40 billion in emergency funding on top of the 80 billion we just approved for Iraq’s reconstruction and military support.  Bush said he wouldn’t request that funding until after the November elections.  At least he’s honest on that score.

We are spending too much in the Middle East for what we are getting for it, and not spending enough here at home on our own security.  The Homeland Security programs are badly under funded, and the money we are spending in Iraq is being wasted.  Halliburton just admitted that some of their employees were taking millions of dollars in kickbacks from Kuwait contractors for rebuilding contacts in Iraq.  Iraqi’s are continually amazed at our wasteful approach.

Besides this spending bill being chockfull of pork, it’s also full of major changes in policies that should each be debated individually on their own merits.  Democrats were told this bill is “take it or leave it”.  Among the policy changes included are;

• Relaxing restrictions on Media ownership
• Postponed food labeling requirements that state country of origin
• Changed Federal overtime pay requirements that may eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers. 
• Relaxed requirements for Federal gun records
• Allows the Government to outsource more functions (like Halliburton)
• Includes the first Federally funded school vouchers

These aren’t minor changes; these are very important issues, and I can’t believe they stick them in a funding bill and jam them down our throats.  I am also amazed all these things are being done without anyone really being aware of it.   Most people won’t bother to read enough news to see what just happened, and they won’t realize it until their paycheck shows no overtime pay for the extra 7 hours they put in, or they find out their canned corn is from Argentina.