We Know The Answer Now
An interesting exchange today between Jake Tapper of ABC News and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs during the daily briefing includes this
TAPPER: . . . The president is going to sign a bill — the spending bill — which contains $8 billion in earmarks. Democrats in the Senate are now calling for the president, if not make an effort to have it stripped in the Senate, to veto the bill. Evan Bayh has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. I don’t fully understand this argument that this is — we’re moving forward. This bill hasn’t even come to the president’s desk yet. If you guys are really serious, why not take the bull by the horns and get this stuff out of the omnibus spending bill?
GIBBS: Let me try again. What we’ve talked about before, this is the culmination of the legislative business from the previous fiscal year and the previous Congress. The president is greatly concerned, and I think that shows in the efforts that he’s taken to illuminate through transparency and accountability wasteful spending and earmarks in legislation. That’s why he put this on the Internet. That’s why he hasn’t asked for any in the past few years. And the president believes that we can work with Congress to reduce wasteful spending in the future.
TAPPER: But why not now?
GIBBS: Well, we are…
TAPPER: I guess — you make it sound as if the legislation is written and it’s just waiting for him to sign, and it’s not. It’s being worked on right now on Capitol Hill. It’s in the progress of being assembled. So it’s not that he comes to office and this is outstanding business.
GIBBS: Well — well, it is outstanding business in the sense that typically appropriations bills are done before half the fiscal year is over.
TAPPER: Right. But it’s not too late to, like, tell Harry Reid: If you send this to me…… with this $18 billion — this $8 billion…
GIBBS: I think, as I said before, that the president will lay out some very clear objectives on how we move forward. There will be, over the course of the next several years, dozens and dozens of appropriations bills that cross his desk. And we’ll change the rules going forward, understanding that we have to deal with last year’s business.
Just to highlight a couple of choice quotes
- “the president believes that we can work with Congress to reduce wasteful spending in the future”
- “the president will lay out some very clear objectives on how we move forward”
- “over the course of the next several years, dozens and dozens of appropriations bills that cross his desk”
- “we’ll change the rules going forward”
So, everything about earmarks and wasteful spending is about the future, and going forward, and several years and dozens of bills, and laying out clear objectives. You see, Obama can’t strap on Congress because this is really about the business of Congress last year. Thank goodness that Obama was not constrained by the business of Congress last year when he “made a down payment” on his priorities in the colossal stimulus bill.
To make matters worse, this article on CBS news states
And when it comes to changing congressional rules on earmarks, Mr. Obama is being told to butt out – by none other than a top Democrat.
“I don’t think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, telling reporters, “I hope you all got that down.”
“I saw those remarks,” said Gibbs, who then reiterated the president’s commitment to work with Congress to reduce wasteful spending.
Just none contained in the earmarks of the spending bill headed his way.
Oooh. Gibbs reiterates the president’s commitment to work with Congress to reduce wasteful spending. Funny, but I don’t recall that rhetoric, exactly, in any of Obama’s campaign speeches or in the debates. I remember something more forceful, more definitive.
Leading up to the inauguration, one question was whether Obama would be able to stand up the the House and Senate. When Steny Hoyer opens up a can on the White House, we now know the answer.