Christmas Cheer from Washington

Today, Sunday, while we were relaxing; the Senate was passing a $1,100,000,000,000 spending bill - that's 1.1 trillion dollars. This bill represents about half of the annual spending bills relating to the budget - not in dollars but in the number of bills. This bill combined six spending bills into one. Five others have already been passed and one remains - the military spending bill.

Today's bill covers the annual budget for several departments, all of which received increased spending approvals. As much of the public is unemployed or under-employed and most of the rest are not getting any raises, this bill gives federal workers a 2% raise. You may remember that a few weeks ago the government announced no raises for those on social security for next year due to there being no inflation for this year. So, the 2% raise, you could say, is above the cost of living changes. This is not a raise to let them "keep up" with higher costs, it is an actual raise for every one of them.

As always, these bills include items that are unrelated to the main bill. Included today is approval for the District of Columbia to pay for abortions and legalize marijuana. This bill includes 5,000 pork barrel projects that total $3,900,000,000. These projects amount to $12 for every man, woman and child in the country. You may think that that is not so bad, it's just $12 for each of us. Remember, this is just the extra, pet projects added to this one bill. There were 9,000 of these added to the stimulus bill passed as soon as Obama was elected. Just about every bill that they pass has more of these. The upcoming military spending bill is always loaded with thousands of pork barrel projects. The cRats load the military bill because they know iCan'ts will vote "yes" as they support the military.

Another perspective on today's spending bill - the total reflects $33,000 spending, this budget year, for every man, woman and child in the country. Remember, this is only about half of the spending bills for the year.

Our government is out of control with spending! It is controlled by professional, career politicians. They have lost touch with reality and do not represent the public any longer.

It's time to "sweep the House"!