The Slippery slope

Am I the only one that finds it personally insulting our President-elect is spending close to 160 million dollars on his inauguration at a time when unemployment figures show that the U.S. lost a net total of 500,000 jobs in December. If accurate, that would bring 2008's total job losses to 2.4 million, the first annual job loss since 2001 and the highest since 1945.

This obscene expenditure is four times what was spent at President Bush’s Inauguration just eight years ago. News reports of this allocation are running alongside of statements from our President elect regarding our need to sacrifice over possibly the next four years to pull the U.S. economy out of the hole we are in. It appears that Mr. Obama believes that the American People are the only ones that need to tighten their belts, not our elected officials. I am reminded of how Nero fiddled while Rome burned!

I have news for Mr. Obama:
The first rule of holes: When you find yourself in one.... Stop digging!

But, democratic leaders in the House of Representatives unveiled an $825 billion tax cut and spending bill on Thursday they hope will help President-elect Obama erase the steep decline in the U.S. economy. The bill, which would add to an already massive $1.2 trillion budget deficit forecast for this year, would combine $550 billion in emergency spending initiatives with $275 billion in temporary tax benefits over the next two years.

The goal of the legislation, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is to create and save up to 4 million jobs in an economy that has suffered through a recession for more than a year. It should be noted that when the government says it is going to create jobs that means “government jobs” and that “Saving Jobs” is gov-speak for “Bail out”
Obama has called on Congress to act quickly or risk seeing the economy deteriorate further. Yet this bill calls for questionable new government spending on programs and projects, while providing less tax relief for middle-class families and small businesses than Obama had proposed during the election.
He has not even taken office yet and already he is backing out of his promises to the American people.
This country needs a leader, who offers more than rhetoric; it needs a leader who leads by example.