Posted on 02/09/2009 6:53:23 AM PST by 2nd amendment mama
America’s future in freedom hangs in the balance as three RINO senators on Friday announced they will join Democrats in their scheme to move this country irretrievably down the path to socialism. Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have indicated they will vote for the $1.3 trillion “stimulus” spending bill that purposes none other than precisely that outcome. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office ruled that less than 20 percent of the bill could in any way be considered stimulative.
The vote for cloture in the Senate is scheduled for 5:30 pm today. If cloture is invoked, debate would end on the 778-page bill that was not released to the Senate until 11:00 pm Saturday.
At noon on Tuesday the bill will be subject to another 60 vote hurdle by either waiving a budget point of order or achieving 60 votes on final passage. This bill that will ground this country in socialism will have passed the “greatest deliberative body in the world” with only one small window of debate on the bill as actually written on Monday afternoon.
These three Republican senators should forever be held accountable for bringing unfettered socialism to bear on the American people. Remember their names -- Specter, Collins, Snowe -- and let this forever be their legacy.
On the Senate floor Friday, Specter and Collins tried to justify their move by suggesting they were able to cut some spending out of the bill. It should be noted here that none were able to see their way through to cut the $4.2 billion slated for ACORN and like groups for “community stabilization.” An amendment offered by David Vitter (R-La.) that would bar ACORN from eligibility for these funds was voted down 51-45. ACORN, the group that once employed President Obama as a community organizer, is under federal investigation by the FBI for organized voter registration fraud, among other things.
The $820 billion (pre-debt service total) House version of the bill that so outraged Americans would have actually cost $7 billion less than this Senate “compromise” bill being touted by the three Republican sellouts. Democrats are already indicating that the $827 billion was an optimistic number on this “compromise,” yet once the servicing of the debt is added in at $827 billion, the cost is already over $1.3 trillion dollars.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters last week when the bill goes to conference to be reconciled with the House version, he wanted expenditures cut from the Senate “compromise” bill put back in during the leadership huddle with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.).
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), co-author of this so-called compromise, released staggering numbers in a chart giving subtotals of each category of spending (The numbers at the link are in thousands. I adjusted the figures below to include all actual zeroes in these massive numbers -- keep in mind this is in addition to the omnibus appropriations bill coming to Congress in the next week or two):
Agriculture: $5,109,430,000 Commerce: $21,513,000,000 Defense: $3,746,000,000 Energy & Water: $53,843,000,000 Financial & Gen. Govt: $10,762,000,000 Homeland Security: $5,076,700,000 Interior: $11,643,600,000 Labor, HHS, Education: $169,184,000,000 Military & VA: $7,428,295,000 THUD: $60,580,500,000 Appropriations: $365,629,525,000
Notice Democrats did not break out the over $365 billion labeled “appropriations” for scrutiny when they released these preliminary numbers on Friday. By far, the largest expenditures in the remainder of these slightly more categorized numbers show hundreds of billions of dollars in payoffs to decades-long Democrat constituencies: the left-wingnut global warming loons, government takeover of healthcare, subsidized housing, payoffs to teachers’ unions and building contractors. One can only at this point imagine the hundreds of billions allotted to their pet constituencies in the “appropriations” portion of the bill.
Never before in history has there been a $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill; supplemental, stimulus or otherwise. This isn’t yet the actual omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2009 that was pulled off of last week’s House calendar by Pelosi lest it hurt the chances for passage of this spending orgy. That additional omnibus spending bill is expected to cost taxpayers another half-trillion dollars in borrowed money. None of these spending bills include the expansion of TARP, the coming ask for hundreds of billions of dollars in additional bank bailout funds expected by legislators in the coming week(s). Nor does this include the tens of billions for the Auto Workers’ Union disguised as a bailout for the Big Three auto industry.
Democrats over the weekend had the audacity to term this a “bi-partisan” bill. Make no mistake: of the 219 Republican members of both the House and the Senate, Democrats may manage to get a whopping three Republican traitors to vote for this transfer of wealth out of the private sector. That hardly qualifies as bi-partisan, especially given that 11 Democrats voted against it in the House.
Lest you believe that my opening statement “America’s future in freedom hangs in the balance,” to be hyperbole, I would remind you that last week we saw President Obama place a limit on how much money an entity who receives bailout money can pay their executives. That was quickly followed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) proposing legislation that would restrict compensation to executives in all financial institutions and could encompass all U.S. companies. The legislation would give the Federal Reserve, an entity that is unelected and completely unaccountable to the American people, the authority to monitor systemic risk in the economy and, according to Barney Frank, shut down financial institutions that face too much exposure. What we are witnessing is a government takeover -- socialism on the march -- actually now at a full-blown sprint under Democrat leadership.
The American people in multiple polls overwhelmingly object to this disastrous spending bill by upwards of 63% on Friday. A grassroots effort has sprung up led by members of the website FreeRepublic.com calling on folks to lobby the three RINO senators in person. They’ve got folks flying in for the effort that begins at 10:00 am on Monday from as far away as California.
As Winston Churchill said in a speech in 1941 as he battled the takeover by force of England by National Socialists (Nazis), “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
Connie Hair is a freelance writer, a former speechwriter for Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and a former media and coalitions advisor to the Senate Republican Conference.
4th paragraph:
Earlier GSE Bill Would’ve Prevented Fannie, Freddie Takeover - Regulator
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
By Michael R. Crittenden
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)—If the Bush administration and Congress had succeeded in passing a regulatory overhaul for Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) earlier than this year it may have prevented them from being taken over by the government, the firms’ regulator said Monday.
James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a speech in Las Vegas that he discussed the issue with former President George W. Bush just days before President Barack Obama took the oath of office.
“Although he already knew the answer, he asked me whether getting GSE reform legislation several years earlier would have prevented the [companies’] problems,” Lockhart said. “My answer was simply, yes.”
The two government-sponsored enterprises were put under government control in September amid concerns about their capitalization and solvency. The Bush administration had for years sought to tighten oversight of the firms, but bickering with the members of their own party who controlled Congress, as well as with Democrats, prevented any action on legislation until last summer.
Lockhart defended the decision to put the firms under government control, saying that without the move the firms would have had to “pull back dramatically from the market, which would have accelerated the downward spiral.”
In the speech to the American Securitization Forum, Lockhart also pressed those involved with the mortgage-backed securities market to do more to help stem the record numbers of foreclosures that have been a root cause of the current credit crisis. He called stabilizing the housing market “the biggest challenge we face,” and said private industry participants need to be more aggressive in working with struggling homeowners.
“There will be no excuses going forward not to aggressively pursue standardized modifications to prevent foreclosures and lessen their negative impact on communities and the nation’s economy,” Lockhart said in his prepared remarks.
Mortgage servicers need to embrace streamlined approaches for reworking mortgage loans and keep borrowers in their homes, Lockhart said. He praised an ASF program to create a standardized loan modification program but said “it is taking too long.”
“These are extraordinary times, and we need extraordinary actions,” he said.
Lockhart also said that he is hopeful that the Obama administration’s plan to use the second $350 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program will include some help for private mortgage insurance companies.
-By Michael R. Crittenden, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9273; michael.crittenden@dowjones.com
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
The Dems knew this would happen...it is an ill-hidden ploy to divide the GOP party. The media will only speak of the Republicans, not the Dems. I doubt if people even know what party controls Congress. (not that the traitors were ever IN the party)
Correct.
Collins was up for reelection only 3 months ago. I posted several threads saying she needed a real Republican challenger in the 2008 primary. Conservative activists shrugged it off ("But Maine is a blue state, she needs to be that way to win... blah blah blah") and were too busy whining about politicians who agree with them 90% of the time instead. Republicans in Maine then rubber stamped her for another yet term and Susan knew she could vote with the RATs on most major issues and get a free pass from the party base. So why not?
And I'm not even going to get into all the conservative activists on FR who openly supported Specter in the 2004 primary, arguing that "only he" could "win" Pennsylvania (with an even dumber argument being "President Bush wants Specter renominated, he must have a good reason for doing so, and we must support OUR President"
That argument in particular makes me sad.
This is true. On any given issue they may have several GOP votes. Maybe on something really nasty you’ll have a couple rats be against it.
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