Cable Media anchors and hosts, with a few exceptions, have been making total fools of themselves over the $7.7 Billion in “earmarks” included in the $410 Billion Omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress. They have manufactured a protean conflict between the “good government” types, many of whom are suddenly many of the same Republicans who turned the country over to the corporate and financial interests who have manufactured the current world wide deepening economic crisis (I no longer know whether to call it a recession or use the dreaded “D” word), and the “big, bad” earmarkers; and have given these folks every opportunity to make the case that the President should be vetoing the Omnibus “spending” bill because it is “chock full of earmarks.” These efforts are particularly amusing when the “chock full of earmarks” charge is delivered while the message along the bottom of the screen reads “2% of the total.”
Well, let me see if I understand what these cable media types are trying to say to me.
“Joe, we think this earmark issue is important enough for us to provide the Republicans a platform of incessant chatter for nearly a week now, because if President Obama would only live up to his promises and veto this bill, there would be a knock down drag-out fight in Congress involving a shut-down of the Federal Government, that would be great for us to cover, and exciting for you to watch, for at least the next three weeks. And this fight would take up so much of Congress’s and the President’s time that they wouldn’t have time to begin considering the Card Check Bill, or reform of the Health Care System, or the Education program, or the Energy Program, or any further stimulus bills, or credit card reform, or any investigation of Bush Administration abuses. It would also create so much bad feeling between the President and key figures in the Congress, that it would be much easier for Republicans to mount strong attacks on the President in the future, and so, would produce more interesting fights for us to occupy our time and yours. And just look at all that would be accomplished. Right now, in fact, the percentage of “earmarks” in the spending bill is 1.87 % of the total. And if the President were to veto this bill, he could expect to gain from a fight with Congress on this issue, a cut of perhaps 50% of the “earmarks” out of the bill, since undoubtedly, a good case can be made for many, if not most of the earmarks and a compromise position around a 50% cut in the earmarks would probably develop. Therefore, we think that for less than 1% of the spending bill (less than $3.85 Billion) in savings, President Obama should engage in a knock-down drag-out fight with Congress over turning all sorts of deals that were made before he became President, and taking time and effort away from solving problems of both the domestic and International Economy that are currently placing many, many millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of valuation at risk. Wouldn’t that be great if he did that? Joe, don’t you think we’re doing the right thing in spending all this media time making the case that the President should veto this obnoxious evil “chock full of earmarks” bill, rather than covering the Health Care, Energy, Education, further stimulus issues, and re-organization of the global economy issues?”
Well, Duh . . . . . . . . .