Openness And Transparency On The Deal

It appears that an agreement has been struck in the House/Senate conference committee on the Generational Theft Act/Porkapalooza bill today:

House and Senate leaders have struck a tentative deal on a stimulus package with a top-line figure of $789.5 billion, Democratic aides said this morning.

Wow, they sure did a bang up job of cutting out the pork, didn't they? If it was 90% pork before -- at a price tag of $920 billion -- my calculator shows that it's down to a piddly 88% pork now. Excellent! Nice work, RINOs, way to stick it to those Democrats!

Of course, that's assuming that they removed only pork rather than the handful of substantive stimulus items. But if you assumed that, you'd be wrong. It appears that a large chunk of the price decrease is...[drum roll please]...tax cuts! That's right, those precious few tax cuts that are in the bill are being trimmed down. Too expensive, it seems:

Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit would be reduced from $500 per worker to $400, with couples eligible for an $800 credit, instead of $1,000, said a Democratic aide close to the talks.

Hey, are you noticing something strange? All the sources that are dishing this information are Democrats. Well, there's a very good reason for that...

They locked out the Republicans. Literally.

This is the Democrat definition of 'bipartisanship'. Oh, and it's another lie by the Obama administration that pledged on its website, among other things:

End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: As president, Barack Obama will restore the American people's trust in their government by making government more open and transparent. Obama will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees, to be conducted in public. By making these practices public, the American people will be able to hold their leaders accountable for wasteful spending and lawmakers won't be able to slip favors for lobbyists into bills at the last minute.

Swiiiiing...and-a-miss!

Ace of Spades hits the nail on the head:

More evidence to suggest that to President Obama and the Democrats, bipartisanship means doing the will of The One, without all that pesky interference from the other party.

Of course, with the media wholly in the Kool-Aid filled tank for the Obamessiah, he gets away with publicly ripping Republicans for not taking part in the process despite physically locking them out of the room where the decisions are being made.

The biggest problem of all with the media non-coverage, of course, is that the GOP has put forward multiple alternative plans that would be far more effective in stimulating the economy for far less cost, and the American public doesn't know about them. Polls show a majority of Americans want the government to do something, but they don't want the Democrats' bill. If they knew there was a viable alternative that would work twice as well for half the cost, it would be a no-brainer.

As Rep. Mike Pence says:

“I think the American people deserve to know that legislation that would comprise an amount equal to the entire discretionary budget of the United States of America is being crafted without a single House Republican in the room.”

There's bipartisanship for you.

Hope! Change! (...but not really...)

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://minx.cc/?post=282735
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/11/the-generational-thieves-reach-a-deal-gop-conferees-frozen-out/
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30667
http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/
http://johnboehner.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=111009
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/282738.php