Today in Washington D. C. - March 26, 2009

Yesterday, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to waive the Budget Act on an amendment from Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) to increase the borrowing authority of the FDIC by a vote of 48-49. An amendment from Sen. John Ensign was tabled. The Senate also confirmed David Kris to be an assistant attorney general.

Today, the Senate again resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 1388, a bill which would significantly expand AmeriCorps and boost its funding. Action on the bill is expected to be completed today. Roll call votes on amendments are expected throughout the day. The best action from on this bill would be to vote it down, not only can we not afford it, but liberals and the Telepromptor seem to be enamored with morphing AmeriCorps into a nightmare of potential "brownshirts" for our future.

Though there was a lot of discussion over the last couple of days of changes that Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad and Democrat leaders were planning to make to the Obama budget plan, it’s clear today that main thing that they decided to change was the amount of transparency in the budget. Today, The Washington Post takes Conrad and Democrats to task for resorting to gimmicks they previously praised Obama for eliminating, “Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and House Budget Committee Chairman John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) were spooked by a Congressional Budget Office analysis of President Obama’s $3.6 trillion proposal that found the government would run a deficit of $9.3 trillion (or $2.3 trillion more than estimated by the White House) over the next decade. They are right to be spooked, and their instincts to try to pare back those looming deficits are correct. But their responses have been to resort to the gimmickry that Mr. Obama sought to get away from. While it makes their budgets look better on paper, it does nothing to improve a dangerous fiscal picture. . . . There’s no mystery as to the motivation for this dishonesty. Like Mr. Obama, the Democrats in Congress want to spend more on education, energy and other popular programs. Like Mr. Obama, they don’t want to level with voters about the need to pay for such programs through increased taxes. According to the CBO, Mr. Obama’s budget plan would have the government spending more than 23% of gross domestic product throughout the second half of this decade while collecting less than 19% in revenue. Rather than fix this problem, Mr. Conrad in his budget proposal closes his eyes and wishes it away.”

Meanwhile, The San Diego Union-Tribune criticizes Obama for the lack of candor in his rhetoric on the budget. “Now, to his discredit, Obama is simply ignoring these grim fiscal realities. The president argues that to put America on track for a better future, he has no choice but to pursue enormously costly expansions of government health coverage and government regulation of energy use and production. But he must acknowledge that his ambitions have a jaw-dropping price tag. . . . Instead, Obama refused to be accountable.”

It’s precisely the “jaw-dropping price tag” on the budget that Conrad and Obama are looking to conceal, especially given the heartburn it continues to generate for moderate Democrats. Politico reports today that far-left groups MoveOn.org and Americans United for Change (a union-backed group) are targeting centrist Senate and House Democrats, demanding they support a budget they know spends, taxes, and borrows too much. Even Obama’s former campaign organization, Organizing for America, has been urging its members to contact Indiana Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh about Obama’s budget, according to a report from Amanda Carpenter.

It’s unfortunate but expected that Democrats seem to think it’s necessary to eliminate some of the initial candor in the Obama budget in their efforts to sell the massive proposal to their own members and to the rest of the country. The Teleprompter's campaign organization is out there interfering in the legislative process like the union thugs will be used to force workers to sign-up under Card Check verses having the right to a secret vote.

The continued behind the scene's use by a candidate of their campaign organization after having been elected may be unequaled in U.S. history. However, world history displays similar abuses of power. When U.S. Senators and Representatives must worry about their constituents being hounded and harassed not by independent free thinking fellow citizens but by a President's organized campaign machine, like "Organizing for America," we can begin to understand part of the context of how the Caesars and Hitlers of the past got their way by controlling the masses and thus the governing bodies of their days. While Obama may not be a despot, he and his staff's use of his campaign machine evidences a willingness to do anything to get their way. Our forefathers set up check and balances (separation of powers) for a reason but everyday these safeguards seem to be eroding.

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