Today in Washington D. C. - Oct 16, 2009 - Congress is Worse than foxes in the hen house!

The Senate is in "recess" until Monday at 2 PM.  But the democrat minions of deception (at present three not counting the White House staff) are at work in Sen. Reid's office behind closed doors crafting a new health care bill which will result in too much spending, too much government expansion into our lives and too many too taxes. However, today, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) met this morning by conference call with numerous bloggers and reporters. Although sounding "battle worn" like a general calling for reinforcements from the front lines, Hatch cut through the rhetoric and provided candid revealing answers to any questions asked.

Yesterday, the Senate approved the conference report for the $34 billion fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water appropriations bill (H.R. 3183), clearing it for the president’s signature. Also yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1776, a $247 billion bill to prevent cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors. A cloture vote is scheduled for Monday evening. If passed this is only a stop gap measure.

The Obama administration released the first real numbers on jobs the $787 billion stimulus bill supposedly “saved or created” yesterday, but once again all Americans have seen is that the bill has fallen far short of the projections and assurances of the White House. The Washington Post reports today that “the reports mark the first time the government has attributed a number of actual jobs -- however incomplete -- to the stimulus program, as opposed to estimates.” The administration was quick to laud the reports, with Jared Bernstein, chief economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden saying, “The direct count by Recovery Act recipients of jobs created or saved from this small percentage of the recovery act exceeds our projections.”

When the stimulus was first being sold to Congress by President Obama and his advisers, they said that the bill would create 4 million jobs and keep unemployment from exceeding 8%. Since then 3.4 million Americans have lost their jobs and unemployment is approaching 10%, but the White House wants the country to believe that the stimulus “exceeds [their] projections?” However, this week’s report does provide the opportunity to see if any of this budget-busting spending is having an effect where it is most needed. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case, according to The New York Times. “Businesses with federal stimulus contracts have created few jobs in states with the worst unemployment rates, according to data released Thursday by the federal government,” the Times reported yesterday. “One thing was clear: while the federal contracts have created or saved 30,383 jobs, they were not directed to states with the highest jobless rates. Businesses in Michigan, whose 15.2% unemployment rate in August was the highest in the nation, reported creating or saving about 400 jobs. Businesses in Nevada, which had the next highest unemployment rate, reported 159. And businesses in Rhode Island, which had the third-highest unemployment rate, 12.8%, reported the fewest jobs: just six.”

And there are even questions being raised today as to whether these numbers really reflect Americans being put back to work. New York Post columnist Charlie Hurt decided to look into a project that was reported by the administration as creating 50 jobs in Danville, Virginia: “Take one of this year’s most astonishingly successful federal-stimulus contracts touted on the administration’s Web site,” Hurt writes, “a grant for a Head Start program in Danville, Va. With less than $35,000, the Obama administration managed to create or save 50 jobs in Danville, they boast.” But, Hurt found, “No one was more mystified by this claim than the man who keeps the books for the Community Improvement Council, which won the federal grant. ‘It hasn’t created jobs, but it’s helped improve 50 jobs,’ Roy Garner explained. The money has gone for staff training, pay raises and playground repair. Wanting to be helpful, Garner added, ‘It’s helped prepare 50 people for keeping their jobs.’ But asked if any of the jobs were on the chopping block before the federal government arrived on the scene with all our money, Garner replied simply, ‘No.’”

3.4 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus bill was signed. Unemployment is approaching 10%. Stimulus money is not creating jobs in the states with the highest unemployment. And in the places where jobs are supposedly being created, we’re hearing, “It hasn’t created jobs, but it’s helped improve 50 jobs.” And, we are supposed to believe the Democrats again! We are supposed to trust placing one-sixth of our economy (health care) into the hands of the Government. The truth is most Americans do not trust them.  But, they are for the moment proceeding with the planned theft of our choices and options while making us pay for the privileged planned process.

Congress has become worse than foxes in the hen house. They are stealing the whole house and our means to replace the house and the chickens. It often takes a con to know a con. Bernie Madoff must be smiling or, should we say it, "POd. While Madoff serves time for his ponzi scheme, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel huddles in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office and they plan the biggest con to date. Recall that the Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate and control the majority in the House. However, Reid does not trust that he can get all his own party to vote with hm. So as Reid publicly touts, he may change the Senate rules so they can avoid the few democrat senators or who may still have a conscience or who still listen to the majority of their constituents who oppose nationalization of health care.

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