Published: February 17, 2009 08:20 am      

On the Right Side: Obama well on his way to ignominy

Move over, Jimmy Carter. You've got someone on the fast track to replace you as the worst president in the history of our nation.

And he's done all this in only 28 days!

First of all, he's arrogant. Going around, still in a campaign mode, blaming Republicans for blocking progress, while _ depending on the poll taken _ 56 to 60 percent of Americans see the "stimulus" package as a bad solution to our present economic woes.

Then you chide Republicans by saying on one of your campaign stops, "What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending. That's the whole point!"

This, of course, earned him a few chuckles from his "Kool-Aid" crowd. But, as Lindsey Graham pointed out on a Sunday news show, of the massive $787 billion bill, only $3 billion is going to small business.

Sorry, Barack, it's you who doesn't know what a stimulus package is supposed to be. It's not about welfare and pork spending. It's about job creation and economic growth. I wonder if he really knows that jobs come from small businesses.

How about his dishonesty? Even his biggest fan, The New York Times, is starting to get a little antsy with the guy.

On his first day in office, he solemnly pledged to impose the toughest ethics rules of any modern-day president. It was a huge campaign promise and it took about a week for him to break it.

Bill Richardson, commerce secretary nominee, was the first casualty. Then came William Lynn, nominated for the No. 2 position in the Defense Department.

Somehow, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner slipped through with all his tax cheating, but Nancy Killefer's and Tom Daschle's tax issues sunk them.

Finally (so far), there was Hilda Solis and her husband's problems. It was very inconvenient for her that she filed a joint return with him.

Remember how Obama promised transparency in government and the opportunity to allow the public to view any passed proposals for five days before he signed the bill into law?

Oops, there goes another promise broken. The Senate had the final bill, 1,073 pages full of vagueness, given to it only hours before the vote was to be taken.

The Republican senators were also, as were the House Republicans, shut completely out of the process. No input, no give-and-take, no negotiations and no consideration of any Republican suggestions.

So much for bipartisanship. Fortunately for Obama, he was able to buy three make-believe Republicans _ Specter, Collins and Snowe _ to get his bill passed. Specter was bought for $6.5 billion for "medical research." No details, again, just vagueness.

Now for Obama's radicalism. He is now responsible for the largest pork and welfare spending act in history. This is the largest welfare bill ever.

It will cause the size of government to expand hugely and permanently. Future generations, from both liberal and conservative families, will be hit with a massive federal debt to be paid back with very, very high taxes.

People shouldn't forget that he was the most liberal, partisan member of Congress. Did you really expect to get the "change" that was promised?

You 53 percent who voted for him are now responsible for him. You got a youthful, radical, naive, inexperienced liberal who has no idea how to run a country.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and their radical ilk will be leading him by the nose repeatedly in the future.

As columnist Rich Lowry points out, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich tried to limit the size of government and partially succeeded.

From 1983 to 2000, government spending went from 23.5 percent of GDP to 18.4 percent. Newsweek pointed out the percent was 20.9 percent last year and will probably go to 28 percent this year.

It also said: "In 2010, total U.S. government spending will be 39.9 percent of GDP, only about 8 percent less than the average in the socialistic eurozone countries."

So conservatives, there is a silver lining. With Obama leading the country, our party can only gain in strength.

As columnist David Limbaugh rightly says, "President Barack Obama has done more in the first three weeks of his presidency to validate the suspicions of his critics than I thought possible."

Republicans had a chance to control spending, and let everyone down when they failed to illustrate the differences between themselves and the Democrats. They dropped the ball that time, but we will have one more chance to lead in the near future.

Fortunately, Obama is helping us tremendously in pointing out the distinctions between the parties. Let's just sit back and enjoy the show.

Soon, I want to bring to the fore all the ridiculous spending features of the bill. It might take more than one column to point out all the wasteful spending, and you never know how soon Barack will screw something up again.

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Tom Sears is a professor of accounting at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He can be reached at SearsT@hartwick.edu. His column appears every other week.