Omnibus 2009 Issues
This bill has passed the House, 245 to 178 and by a 62 to 35 vote in the Senate on a mostly partisan vote . As you can see by the chart (left), spending as a % of the GDP has increased dramatically this year.
Caving in to Castro Changes are in store for our Cuba relations. Cuba has been notorious for not paying its bills, so the US has required Cuba to pay in advance for the $780 million in agricultural products we sell them each year. This appropriations bill drops that requirement for Cuba to pay in advance. Additionally, Americans' with families in Cuba will be able to visit annually instead of every three years.
What makes this all the more interesting is
last week Raul Castro purged almost twenty regime officials. This is not only the biggest purge in 20 years but Cuba's youngest and most reform minds were replaced with die hard Stalinist. It is even more interesting since the Democratic Congress refused to give preferred trading status to Columbia, one of our allies. Instead they are willing to help a communist country that just murdered 20 top officials and not help a country that has been one of our staunchest allies.
DC Education Cuts Voucher Funding The Pelosi-crafted FY09 budget zeros out funding for the DC voucher program next school year. This program provides almost 2,000 students a $7,500 voucher to attend private schools, which is much cheaper than public school costs. The DC public schools not only get an F in education but are dangerous. For every 4 kids that sign up, only one slot is available through the voucher program.. It should be a no brainer for Washington, these children should have a chance at a better education. Sadly enough, Democrats felt the need to kill this program so the teachers unions and government schools could maintain their strangle hold on our children's education.
Gaza Get $900 million Taxpayers are being tagged to give $900 million for rebuilding Gaza. Much of this will very likely end up in the pockets of radical Hamas in much the same way
Hamas stole UN supplies meant for Palestinian refugee. Strangely, there was no money for the damage Hamas inflicted on Israel with their rockets and bull dozer attacks.
Trade Wars Congress added a provision that would
prevent long-haul freight trucks based in Mexico from operating in the United States. This action is
completely out of compliance with our NAFTA agreements and could lead to a major trade wars which would be devastating to our already ailing economy. By blocking Mexican trucks from entering the US, we may initially save jobs. However, if Mexico retaliates with trade restrictions of their own we would loose US jobs. Why? Since we can't export the products associated with any Mexican trade restrictions, our companies would not have as much demand for their products. As demand drops the resulting drop in production would force layoffs.
E-Verify "
E-verify." is an online system where you can
compare information given you by the employee with various government databases. This system is designed to help prevent illegal aliens from taking jobs American's would otherwise hold. Republican Senator Sessions attempted to pass amendment 604 that would have added E-verify to the bill. However, in what appears to be an attempt to secure potential voters, Harry Reid blocked a vote on Senator Sessions amendment.
Green House Gases Projects that emit greenhouse gases anywhere in the U.S. could be blocked under a Democratic proposal because of potential harm to endangered species. This section of the bill would allow President Obama to block projects that might add to global warming, even if they are outside of the polar bear habitat. As a result,
the Obama administration could regulate any emitter of greenhouse gases anywhere in the U.S. to prevent the melting of polar-bear habitat. Regardless of your belief in man made Global Warming, these actions would kill jobs by either stopping projects or making products too expense for the consumer, there by causing more layoffs.
Endangered species The interior and commerce secretaries can now expand the input from Federal scientists in
endangered species decisions, bar greenhouse gases from being restricted to protect polar bears from global warming, and allow oil and gas drilling to continue near the habitat of the bears. The effects of this would very likely be greater restrictions on green house gases throughout the economy, less energy exploration and expanded protections of endangered species at the expense of our economy and our land and personal rights.
Funding Increases Although President Obama speaks of a need for everyone to sacrifice, it evidently doesn't apply to Congress. Legislative branch operations in
Congress will receive an 11% increase to be used for Congress to run their offices. This increase is almost three times of both last year's 4% increase and the rate of inflation in 2008. So the operations in Congress will now total $4.4 billion. As a final insult
Senate voted to keep automatic pay raises. Other spending increases are listed below.
- Agriculture - $20.5 billion, including a 14 percent boost over 2008 for the popular WIC program that feeds infants and poor women. Link
- Commerce - $9.3 billion, including $3.1 billion to conduct the 2010 Census. Link
- Education - $66.5 billion, a 7 percent increase over 2008 levels. Link
- Energy - $27 billion, including a $765 million, 54 percent hike for advanced energy research. Link
- Health and Human Services - $66.3 billion, including $30.3 billion for health research. Link
- Housing and Urban Development - $41.5 billion, including $24.5 billion for low-income and American Indian housing. Link
- Interior - $10.1 billion, slightly more than 2008. Link
- Justice - $26.1 billion, including a $715 million, 11 percent increase for the FBI. Link
- Labor - $15.3 billion, including a 5 percent increase for employment and training programs. Link
- State - $13.1 billion, a 3 percent decrease. Link
- Transportation - $13.5 billion, plus $53.7 billion in highway and other transportation funding financed mostly through gasoline taxes. Link
- Treasury - $12.7 billion, including $428 million over 2008 for the IRS, a 4 percent increase. Link
Funding Decreases Both of these were Bush initiatives
1. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, would receive $875 million, which is $1.35 billion less than he requested.
Link
2. No funding for the Reading First literacy program, for which Bush requested $1 billion.
Link
Earmarks "We need earmark reform," Obama said during a presidential debate "And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely." One interesting point is that Obama actually has an earmark in this bill from his time in Senate. His name was strangely removed from the earmark but the earmark will remain.
Although this bill contains a 5% decrease in earmark spending from all of last year, there is still about 8,570 earmarks totaling $7.7 billion. Earmarks are pretty evenly split at about 60% Democratic and 40% Republican so shame on both groups. A sampling of the earmarks are as follows:
- 1. $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a 'magnetic levitation' line from Las Vegas to Disneyland Link
- 2. $1 billion earmark for the 2010 census Link
- 3. $850 million to bail out Amtrak Link
- 4. $300 million to buy new cars for the government Link
- 5. $200 million 1 mile long bridge to stop flooding in Florida from Glenn Beck
- 6. $140 million for something called volcano monitoring. Link
- 7. $97 million for a Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear warhead replacement program that has been canceled. Link
- 8. $75 million earmark for the Smithsonian Link
- 9. Restores funding to the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) from $40 million to $50 million. Bush had canceled this money due to their support of abortion. Link
- 10. $41.5 million to upgrade presidential libraries of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and John F. Kennedy, according to the Heritage Foundation. Link
- 11. $10 million for blue crab disaster assistance Link
- 12. $7.1 million for conservation of Hawaiian sea turtle populations Link
- 13. $6.6 million for Formosan subterranean termites. Link
- 14. $5.8 million for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate in Boston. Link
- 15. $4.5 million for “wood utilization research.” CAGW says that will make $95.3 million spent on “processing technology for laminated veneer” spent by the federal government since 1985. Link
- 16. $3.8 million on a Needles, Calif., highway. Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee Link
- 17. $2.9 million to study how to breed and raise shrimp on “shrimp farms.” Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) reports that since 1985 the federal government has allocated $71 million to the study of shrimp science. Link
- 18. $2 million to promote astronomy in Hawaii. Link
- 19. $1.8 million to research “swine odor and manure management” in Ames, Iowa. Link
- 20. $1.7 million for a honey bee laboratory in Weslaco, Texas. Link
- 21. $1,049,000 for the study in Utah of Mormon Crickets, nasty insects that eat each other -- when they’re not devouring crops. Link
- 22. $951,500 Sustainable Las Vegas. Berkeley and Reid sponsors. Link
- 23. $950,000 Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center. Graham sponsor. Link
- 24. $950,000 for Convention Center Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi Link
- 25. $819,000 to study the genomes of catfish in Auburn, Ala. Link
- 26. $800,000 for the restoration of oyster beds at the University of South Alabama. $173,000 for asparagus-production research in the state of Washington. $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wy. $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Ga. Link
- 27. $713,625 Woody Biomass at SUNY-ESF. Walsh and Schumer sponsors Link
- 28. $473,000 for the National Council of La Raza, a group that advocates citizenship for all Illegal Aliens. Link
- 29. $400,000 to combat the practice of bullying in Montana schools. Link
- 30. $381,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY for music education programs. Jerrold Nadler is the sponsor. Link
- 31. $333,000 for the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins, Ga. Link
- 32. $300,000 Montana World Trade Center. Rehberg sponsor. Link
- 33. $250,000 for security cameras in business districts in Pittsburgh Link
- 34. $250,000 for Blue fin Tuna Tagging Link
- 35. $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu, HI, for educational programs. Sen. Daniel Inouye is the sponsor. Link
- 36. $215,000 for Stony Brook University to teach scientists how to talk to the media Link
- 37. $209,000 to improve blueberry production in Georgia, according to CAGW. Link
- 38. $200,000 for a "Tattoo Removal Violence Prevention Outreach Program" Link
- 39. $200,000 Oil Region Alliance. Peterson sponsor. Link
- 40. $190,000 Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection. Barbara Cubin is the sponsor Link
- 41. $150,000 for Maine authorities to conduct lobster research, plus another $100,000 to study lobster fisherman as the boat from trap to trap, collecting lobsters. Link
- 42. $143,000 Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, NV, to expand natural history education programs. Sponsored by Harry Reid Link
- 43. $75,000 for Totally Teen Zone to tell kids it’s okay to totally zone out with Wii and X Box. Link
- 44. $24,000 A+ for Abstinence. Specter is sponsor. Link
Roger King is a 55-year-old computer programmer with a master’s degree from Clemson University, Born on a farm in Ohio, he now lives in the suburbs of Raleigh, N.C. King is a collector of politically incorrect facts which can be found on politicallyincorrectfacts.com.
