I came across a video today of part of a press conference given a couple of days ago by Obama regarding the stimulus bill currently working its way through Congress.  While I am certainly no fan of nearly anything he had to say and I continue to believe that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act needs to be euthanized as quickly as possible, what caught me as most interesting were some of the specific arguments Obama made to justify the scope and character of the bill.  I was stunned that people would applaud arguments which effectively amount to saying that past excesses which Obama could not control justify the present excesses which Obama quite possibly can, particularly with those arguments coming from the man who has not been shy about telling us that he was elected on the winds of change.

When they say, “Well why are we spending $800 billion, we have this huge deficit,” first of all, I found this deficit when I showed up, number one.  I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big ball waiting for me when I walked into the Oval Office.

In this, Obama points out that the country does hold a rather large debt burden for which he became responsible on Election Day.  The tenor of his line and the response that he gets from the crowd show clearly that what he just said was meant to be a negative statement and a dig at Bush.  The negativity of this line is confirmed on Obama’s website which cites “Increasing Debt” as being a “Problem” which he campaigned to address.  I am uncertain how complaining about a doubling of the national debt under eight years of Bush can support an additional 9% increase in Obama’s first month.

Then there’s the argument, “Well, this is full of pet projects.” When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude without earmarks in it? Not one.

So too here does Obama cite prior bad practices to justify another round of more of the same.  It is difficult at this point to recall any recent bill which hasn’t had earmarks of some sort attached to it.  This has, of course, been cited as a problem by pretty much everyone; Bush, Pelosi, McCain, and Obama have all said at various points that all of the earmark spending is ridiculous.  Yet, here the charge that this bill has gathered too many earmarks is basically dismissed as being the product of people who do not know how things work in Washington.  It’s what always happens, so why should it be a problem now?

Although I suppose that it technically qualifies, I don’t normally consider doubling down to be much of a sign of change.  I grow tired of hearing people defend the same exact things they previously denounced simply because it is a Democrat rather than a Republican who happens to be in charge.  But to hear past misbehavior used to justify current misdeeds is folly of the highest order.

Tags: Barack Obama, logic, spending