Where is Obama's scalpel?

In the first Presidential debate last September 26, Senator McCain proposed a spending freeze on all federal spending other than defense, veterans, and entitlement programs. Obama ridiculed McCain, accusing him of threatening to use “…a hatchet when you need a scalpel.” When asked to name specific programs he would cut, Obama could not (or would) not name any.

Even before the election Obama had a chance to pull out that scalpel, because the $700 billion Wall Street bail-out bill passed in October included these goodies:

$6 million in tax breaks for wooden-arrow manufacturers in Oregon (How much did the fiberglass arrow manufacturers ask for?)

$148 million in tax breaks for wool-producing companies (Well, they are up against that darned global warming!)

$128 million in tax breaks for the manufacturers of automobile race tracks (If that means NASCAR, it’s got enough money from beer commercials.)

$10 million in tax breaks for small television and film producers (That has to be a typo. $10 million will barely pay for the union caterers at a motion picture soundstage.)

$223 million in tax breaks for Alaskan fishermen (Don’t they get oil rebates from Palin?)

$192 million in tax breaks for rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Who can possibly think there’s no profit on a bottle of booze?)

$33 million in tax breaks for corporations operating in American Samoa (Mainly Star-Kist Tuna/Del Monte, headquartered in the district of Nancy Pelosi, whose husband owns $17 million in Del Monte stock)

Both Obama and McCain voted for that bill, and they pulled out neither hatchets nor scalpels. In their defense, of course, time was not on their side. They had no choice but to pass the bill quickly, because the cash had to get to Wall Street to prevent the economy from getting worse. Wow, we dodged a bullet, didn’t we?

Fast forward a few months, and we now find Obama in the Oval Office. The $700 billion bail-out bill that was supposed to solve all the problems did essentially nothing but let businesses know that if they are managed poorly Uncle Sam will come to their rescue. Eager to “do something” and spend money it didn’t have, Obama and the legislators came up with a $787 billion “stimulus bill.” Obama should have been ready for this one, because he had all of November, December, and January to sharpen his scalpel. Perhaps in the move from Chicago to Washington the instrument was misplaced, however, because these likely candidates for excision managed to make it through to the bill-signing ceremony:

$200 million to refurbish the National Mall (That includes $21 million for new sod to replace the lawns that had been trampled to death by Obamatons on inauguration day.)

$50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts (The NEA is the agency that gives money to people who put a cross in a bottle of urine and call it “art.”)

$650 million in coupons to help people switch from analog to digital televisions (Like you can’t get a good price on a new TV at Circuit City’s going out of business sale?)

$2.4 billion for “carbon capture” demonstration projects (If that’s Al Gore’s idea, let him pay for that himself.)

$4.19 billion for ACORN and other “Community Stabilization Activities” groups (A whopping $4.19 billion, even though ACORN is the subject of a RICO corruption lawsuit?)

$400 million for “global warming” research (Chump change for Gore.)

$335 million for sexually transmitted disease education (What’s wrong with re-runs of the films they show in Basic Training?)

$2.1 billion for Head Start (You can’t indoctrinate the tykes into the world of socialism too soon.)

$2 billion for day care programs (Because people without kids should pay for the care of those who have them.)

$500 million to speed up the processing of Social Security Disability claims (All those union guys with the bad backs are in a hurry to get to the bowling alley.)

$150 million for “livestock insurance” (Since when did they get driver’s licenses?)

$6 billion for colleges and universities (Again, so that people without kids can support those who have them.)

$13 billion for special education grants to states (Because the states can’t balance their budgets either.)

$20 billion for food stamps (What happened to “the end of welfare as we know it?”)

$1.7 billion to help the homeless (Most of whom won’t accept the help if it requires sobering up.)

$1 billion to pay heating bills for poor people (Tell them to cancel their cell phones instead.)

$200 million for senior nutrition programs (By the time you’re 65 shouldn’t you already know how to cook and eat?)

$300 million for “green” golf carts (Walking is even more green.)

$30 million for “smart” appliances (The old ones are smart enough, thank you, and isn’t it more “green” to wait until they wear out?)

$5 billion for public housing (Because Washington’s 50-year track record on that is so darned good.)

$87 billion in Medicaid funds for the states (Because some states are run as poorly as the federal government.)

$2.5 billion for the National Science Foundation (To recommend higher utility bills to fight “global warming,” no doubt.)

$2 billion for the National Park Service (We can hold off on more picnic tables, thank you.)

$2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization programs” (Use your imagination, but some of that money will probably make its way to ACORN.)

$650 million for the National Forest Service (Won’t the trees grow if we just leave them alone?)

$600 million for NASA (Mars can wait.)

$600 million for new cars for the government (Not enough cup-holders, Pelosi?)

$75 million for programs to help people quit smoking (If cancer won’t scare them into stopping, nothing will.)

$800 million for Amtrak (Which hasn’t earned a profit in four decades.)

$150 million for maintenance at the Smithsonian Institution (What have the janitors been doing before now?)

$79 billion to help pay down state debt from reckless spending (Because California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are run by incompetents and crooks)

$400 million for “habitat restoration projects” (Let the Sierra Club do it on their dime. Heck, they’re a non-profit organization.)

$2.25 billion for national parks (This doubles the park service’s budget. Has the Grand Canyon gotten bigger?)

$30 million to save the habitat of the “salt marsh harvest mouse” (Which is fortunate to live in the vicinity of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s district)

$88.6 million for the construction of new schools in Milwaukee (Even though that city’s school system is experiencing a declining student population, currently has 15 vacant school buildings and no need for any new schools)

And as if that $787 billion wasn’t enough, a massive $410 billion spending bill was passed just a few weeks later. It included an estimated 9,000 “earmarks,” among them:

$9 million for the nation’s largest provider of abortions, Planned Parenthood (You can never have enough abortions to satisfy Nancy Pelosi.)

$50 million for the United Nations Population Fund (Which is involved in forced sterilization in China)

$22 million for an addition to the JFK Library (Did the real killers finally give up all their records?)

$200,000 for tattoo removals (It’s not the fault of the taxpayers that Angelina Jolie and Billie Bob Thornton didn’t last.)

$473,000 for the Hispanic lobbying group LaRaza that advocates illegal immigration (Let them ask the Mexican government for cash.)

$5.8 million for an “Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate” (Isn’t a plaque at the Chappaquiddick bridge enough?)

$189 million for the study of the catfish genome (Only if it’s breaded and deep-fried)

$800,000 for “oyster rehabilitation” (Isn’t Alcoholics Anonymous free?)

$1.8 million to research “swine odor and manure management” (It costs $1.8 million for Michael Moore to take a shower?)

$41.5 million to upgrade the Presidential libraries of Democrats Roosevelt, Johnson, and Kennedy (For what? They’re not going to be doing any more reading.)

$2.9 million for shrimp-breeding studies (Let them learn it in the schoolyard like everyone else.)

$209,000 to improve blueberry production (Can’t the blueberry farmers just do a web search?)

$6.6 million for Formosan subterranean termites (It would probably be cheaper to send them back to Formosa.)

$1.7 million for a honey bee laboratory (Aren’t all the scientists tied up with global warming?)

$1,049,000 for the study of crop-eating crickets (What do you expect them to eat?)

$333,000 for an aviation museum (Because the nation doesn’t already have any of those?)

$199,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Frankly, nobody cares.)

$75,000 for a “Totally Teen Zone” in Albany, New York (If this has something to do with Miley Cyrus, shouldn’t Disney be paying for it?)

$400,000 to combat bullying in schools. (Can’t they just put up signs that say “No bullying allowed?”)

$150,000 for lobster research (It goes well with melted butter. That’s all you need to know.)

$747,000 for the removal of driftwood from the Potomac River (How about offering 50 cents to all the kids who live near the river for each piece of driftwood they pick up? The work will be done in a week for a lot less money.)

$7.7 million for a “Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institution” (No one in Washington actually knows what this is, including the earmark’s original sponsor – none other than Senator Obama. It was co-sponsored by Clinton and Biden.)

If you can’t find anything in the above lists that deserves a scalpel, let alone a hatchet, congratulations – you are eligible to serve in the government of the United States!

Don Fredrick

March 12, 2009