Lame Duck Suicide Bombers : The Omnibus Bill
72The Nightmare Before Christmas
When does a lame duck become a flying pig with rabies? When crippled quacker House Speaker "Nasty Nancy" Pelosi rams a pork-laden, $1.2 TRILLION "stimulus" spending bill through the U.S. House of Representatives and then tries to follow that with another HALF TRILLION "actual" omnibus bill to boot, that's when!
Holy American bankruptcy, Batman!
Folks, if you haven't burned up the phone lines to the Congressional delegations from your various states yet, it would be a really good idea to Get 'R' Done in the next ten minutes or so. Yesterday would be better, but the danged Time Machine blew a gasket on this one. Sorry.
Will the Senate stop this toxic travesty, knock it out cold like Manny Pacquaio knocks out opponents in the boxing ring? Hmm...now, there is a question. See, it's going to depend on whether or not a double handful of Senate Democrats have the wisdom and courage to buck the trend and act like men (regardless of their physical gender). Because in this case, We the People surely can't count on the Republicans holding the line. Three Lame Duck Elephants (now, there's a confusing image) are already known to be in favor of this thing--hey, how better to flip the duck-bird to all of America for not reelecting them? Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas, suckers!
And a few RINOs who shouldn't have been reelected--Lying Lisa Murkowski of Alaska being one such--are as likely to come down on the side of this monster Spend-O-Gram as not. To guess how Murkowski will vote on a given issue, just ask yourself what Sarah Palin would do...and then predict the opposite.
The flak flying in the Senate on this one did get Pelosi to pull that second bill from the House floor...for now. But, should the first bill actually pass in the Senate, do you have the slightest doubt she'll bring that "extra" half trillion back into play within minutes? Of course she will.
So: Those calls to your Congress-critters? They aren't about "just" $1.2 TRILLION. They're about $1.2 TRILLION...plus HALF A TRILLION...equals $1.7 TRILLION. It doesn't require a CPA to do the math on this one, people: That's a new debt burden of nearly $5,000 on every working man or woman, senior citizen, squalling infant, and texting teenager in the entire United States of America. For every actual taxpayer out there, multiply that by...? (Whatever the true factor may be, you can bet it multiplies out to more than a year of your gross pay.)
If that's not a mass suicide bombing by a bunch of lame ducks determined to blow up America, I don't know what would be.
The Alternative
It's logical to wonder what the heck will happen if the Senate cowboys up and blocks the omnibus, chocks the wheels to keep it from carrying us all over the Cliff of Doom. What then? Does the entire federal government shut down, or what?
One might wish, at least at times, but no.
No, it's not even that difficult for Congress to handle the situation. They have available to them a legislative measure called a "clean resolution". Pass that, and the government rumbles along "as is" for another 45 days or so (whatever the length of the resolution that's passed)...without any of those more than 8,000 earmarks and other boondoggles contained in the bloated Pelosi package. Then, when the new Congress fires up on January 5, the lame ducks are history and reasonable bills can be brought forward.
Bottom line: It's clear that this holdiay season is indeed going to be a collection of Holy Days...one way or the other. If our elected Senators do the right thing, there'll be a deep, collective sigh of relief and gratitude to, quite literally, everything holy that guides and protects us. If not, there'll be a whole lot of us muttering, "Holy S---!"
Personally, I'd prefer that first and much less painful option.
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Amendment XX of our Constitution says terms end noon on January 3rd. Unless the continuing resolution is passed, many government functions will be 'in limbo' after 17 December 2010 (not to be confused with limber).
Given the mess that is being created, we might be better off in the long term if government shut down for the two or three weeks that it would take before a new, hopefully more representation-minded Congress goes into session. This Congress still seems to be about 'If I had a hammer ...', never mind that the President is clearly TRYING to lead his party to reason.
AWESOME! The news is out: Harry Reid pulled the bill from the floor of the Senate. IT IS DEAD!
Loved John McCain's query right after that: "What happened here? Did we just WIN?!"
We did. We did indeed.
The "clean resolution" will be passed, no question about it. Government will be in limbo, all right, but (hey, Jim) it also got a bit more limber, one might say!
One thing I feel we as writers should address at some point: The blamestream media is spinning this as a "GOP obstructionists" result--but our side couldn't have done it without assistance from Democrats who MUST have told Reid, "Hell, no, I won't vote for that.".
Dunno how imppossible it might be to ferret out those heroic Dems, but if we ever do, they deserve a shout-out.
Jim, I have to agree with you: The President DOES appear to clearly be TRYING to lead his party to reason.
Although...Mr. President: Good luck with that.
I was surprised that the media almost appeared to be with the republicans.
Keep on hubbing!
eovery is it me or does it seem like the Dems are purposely taking their anger out on the American people by trying to pass as much bad legislation as possible?
This is outright destruction they are trying to pull off. Get these patheticlosers out of our congress as soon as possible. They are purposely trying to destroy what is left of the USA.
Yeah, Eovery, but the operative word there is "almost".
Tony, I strongly suspect its partly that (by some Dems who understand they're going overboard and who resent being THROWN overboard by the voters) ...and partly support by allies who are too blind to see the downsides of earmarks and other runaway spending.
How anyone CAN be that blind remains a mystery, but there it is.
I smell some pork chops cooking...uh wait, ewwwww...it's that Wicked Witch from moonbattown Beserkley California Nasty Nanny Piglosi! And what's that stench rising beside her? A bunch of rotting dead duck carcasses.
Yeah, those ducks shouldn't be smelling up the place already, but that's what happens when you're a member of the Flying Dead. VERY rapid decomposition.
Wow. Just realized the root word: Decompose. Compost.
Only took me 67 years to figure that one out.
breakfastpop Level 8 Commenter 17 months ago
Great piece of writing. All this garbage can be handled very easily by passing the temporary measure, minus the pork, to keep the government running until February. These people that are in Washington now don't deserve to vote for anything. After all, we threw them out didn't we?