Obam's First 100 Days

A Look at His Budget and Stimulus Bill

President Barack Obama, during his campaign, promised change if he were elected. After his first 100 days in office, a benchmark for every president since Franklin Roosevelt, there is one thing certain: change has been delivered. But... is change always a good thing?

Since becoming president, Obama has passed a bill with over $1,000,000,000,000 (interest included) worth of spending in it, on top of a budget for this year of approximately $3,400,000,000,000. How about we first look at this "stimulus" package, the one that cost over one trillion dollars?

$650,000,000 was spent for additional coupons for digital converter boxes, $580,000,000 for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (that is all it says; no specifics on what it will be paying for, other than "new construction and research"), and $830,000,000 for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (you know how vital they are to the American economy). What is even better is the fact that they could not even figure out exactly what they were giving the money to, so in many parts they simply put extreme generalizations. An example, straight from the bill and not tampered with in any way, is shown below:

SCIENCE

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

SCIENCE

For an additional amount for ``Science'', $400,000,000.

AERONAUTICS

For an additional amount for ``Aeronautics'', $150,000,000.

EXPLORATION

For an additional amount for ``Exploration'', $400,000,000.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r111:1:./temp/~r1115gdQFm:e39112:

Change? We will be lucky if we have any change leftover in the treasury after this.

Keep in mind that this is not the total amount being spent on these programs. These are increases in the amount being spent. This is one of the most irresponsible bills ever written by Congress, and this bill was championed by Obama. Let us also look at the proposed budget for this year: