Congressional Dems planning mother of all spending “last hurrah”?

While fiscal conservatives grow more angry at the GOP for aiding and abetting spending with the now called “Stimulus II” Bush tax framework agreement, our FA Founding Father, Curt, wisely pointed out there is a lot of faux rage and posturing going on within the Democrats over the agreement in his Dec 9th post.

I don’t buy the public bruhaha either.

Granted, there’s bound to be well deserved embarrassment because – after years of raging about tax cuts in general – the Dems piled on tax cuts and credits onto the Bush tax policy extension as a condition for their support. Then, of course, the GOP fell into the trap of doing a Christmas repeat with UI benefits, that will expire a year from now. A political potential at a “Scrooge redux”, so to speak.

This reversal of tax cutting economic policy, in itself, is another indicator that Obama and the Dem Congress might be catching on that not only did their stimulus fall flat, but that the step up in rising mortgage rates indicate Bernanke’s Fed Reserve Policy is backfiring.

Were that not enough to sense new rumblings in the air, even the POTUS himself had a freudian slip of ideology when he proposed an overhaul of the IRS tax code “…to lower rates and raise revenues…” as a method of tackling the nation’s unsustainable debt. An effort I could get behind, mind you… possibly one of the very few since Obama has taken office.

What has become obvious is Obama is astutely aware that he’s in a rock and a hard place. He’s so riled his progressive base that they’re actively seeking a 2012 challenger. The nation has made sure he’s lost his power structure in Pelosi’s House, and Reid’s supermajority is to become but a nation’s nightmare of yesterday.

But those in Congress, who have been addicted to absconding from taxpayers’ wallets for years, do not go down quietly. So one has to wonder if all their posturing is not only to hide their overt change of heart over tax cuts and business credits, but also to serve as the main attraction while more serious spending passes quietly in the pre Christmas nights.

One of those is the ever ongoing funding of Congress… the latest incarnation of the Continuing Resolution being HR 3082, which passed the house late Wed eve, Dec 8th, by a 212-206 vote. 35 Dems defected on the CR, siding with 171 GOPers. While reasons may vary, for many it had to do with the stealth funding for O’healthcare buried in the text. Specifically the funding is for Sections 4001, 4004, 4201 and 4301 of HR 3590, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (if that ain’t a hoot of an oxymoron in retrospect…).

But word is, the piling on isn’t done with the Continuing Resolution even yet. According to Phil Kerpin’s report on Fox News, the Senate is rumoured to tag on “…a full-blown omnibus appropriations bill packed with pork-barrel earmarks, spending increases, and even more funding for every top Obama administration priority.

In short, while the media covers the Dems vaudeville in-fighting act with relish, the usually quiet business of keeping the government running is slated to be a last hurrah of spending by the lame duck Supermajority. But wait… it gets worse. If they didn’t already have the numbers in the Senate, there’s a few sour grapes GOPers willing to defect in order to bring home the pork in time for Christmas dinner.

The most likely to play ball are three retiring appropriators: Kit Bond of Missouri, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Robert Bennett of Utah who will never face voters again. Plus, there’s also the highest-ranking Republican appropriator: Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

We don’t know which earmarks made it into the omnibus yet but we do know that Kit Bond requested 142 earmarks this year totaling over $600 million. George Voinovich requested 172 earmarks totaling over $460 million, Robert Bennett requested 321 earmarks topping $1.3 billion, and Thad Cochran requested a whopping 712 earmarks totaling over $2.4 billion.

Other Republican senators worth worrying about identified themselves last week when they voted against the Coburn-McCaskill amendment to ban earmarks: Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Dick Lugar (R-Ind..), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

Needless to say, pressure needs to remain in order to make sure that the new faces, and incumbent Congress, clearly heard the “Thou shalt not spend” commandment, delivered to them just a little over a month ago. Because, apparently, all too many seem to have forgotten, or simply don’t care.

For more information, and ways to speak up via petitions, Americans for Prosperity – that evil organization singled out by Obama as a “foreign influenced” threat – set up a project website called November Speaks…. including a virtual march on Washington. Yes, folks… in this new age, “pajama clad” bloggers can still march on Washington from the comfort of their keyboards. Make your voices continued to be heard.. and then start reminding them of the 2nd commandment…. “Thou shalt cut expenses, just like the American families have to do!”

It has become abundantly obvious in all too short of a time that none of us can afford – literally – to turn our backs on the beltway, and that memories of those holding seats still are very short term. If we are to return some stability to the American economy, and slowly but surely tackle the debt, some big “changes” need to be done. And none of them resemble what “change” we’ve seen for the past two years. The spending must stop, and the hard task of incremental cutting and slicing away is overdue to begin.