So much for Hope and Change. In Washington, the Obama administration is business-as-usual. The AP Wire reports that despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year. “So much for the promise of change,” Arizona Sen. John McCain said in the first of many assaults he is likely to make against pork-barrel spending this year. Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.
CBS News reports that California Democrat Nancy Pelosi is asking for a much bigger jet — a government version of the Boeing 757 that can make the trip between Washington and her San Francisco home without stopping to refuel. The speaker’s critics have dubbed it “Pelosi One.” Military officials are said to be grumbling about it, and she finds herself on the defensive. Today, she insisted that size doesn’t really matter. “It’s not a question of size. It’s a question of distance. We want an aircraft that can reach California,” Pelosi said. The full article can be read online here:Pelosi Jet Request Sparks Debate - CBS News. How about flying commercial? How is it acceptable for the taxpaper to pick up her tab while simultaneously NOT being acceptable for corporations (employing thousands of hard-working taxpayers) to use them? Democratic leadership at it’s finest.
