After President Obama signed the Omnibus spending bill today, Americans for Tax Reform released the following:
President Barack Obama today signed HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, a $410 billion piece of legislation containing over 9,000 earmarks. By signing the bill, Obama breaks at least three of his most important campaign promises:
1) Transparency — Obama promised to post passed legislation online for five full days before signing it. Obama signed the Omnibus spending bill less than a day after he received it from Congress.
“When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you, the American voter, will have five days to look online and find out what it is before I sign it.
(June 22, 2007. Manchester, New Hampshire. Video clip at 20m 10s: http://tinyurl.com/dl2wog)
2) Overall spending – Obama promised to enact net spending cuts as President. The Omnibus bill is more than 8 percent higher than 2008 spending levels.
“So we’re going to have to make some investments but we’ve also got to make spending cuts, and what I’ve proposed — you’ll hear Senator McCain say ‘he’s proposing a whole bunch of new spending’ –but, actually, I’m cutting more than I’m spending. So that it will be a net spending cut.”
(Oct. 7, 2008. Second Presidential Debate – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM0Eri8VWiw)
3) Wasteful spending – Obama promised to “go line by line” to make sure taxpayer money was not wasted. Among the questionable spending in the Omnibus bill is an earmark which sticks taxpayers with a $200,000 tab for a tattoo removal program in California.
“And, absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”
(Sept. 26, 2008. First Presidential Debate — http://tinyurl.com/ad6966)
Click here for a printable PDF of this document.