Forbidden Donut

I agree with you about the $3000 tax credit.

The first promise was pretty substantial though, in my opinion. It frustrated me to no end to watch Obama urge congress to speed up with the stimulus bill. I felt as if I were watching Bush work all over again.

Well... The promise was actually to allow for 5 days of public review of any non-emergency bill before signing into law. This is widely considered an emergency bill, so it doesn't apply. But since the promise was broken in relation to the Lilly Ledbetter Amendment --which most of the civilized world saw as a really great thing-- doesn't piss people off, the 5 day waiting thing is paraded on only in relation to the stimulus to which it doesn't apply.

That said, congress promised to let us have 2 days to read that hunk of crap before voting on it, but they changed that sucker every time they voted. So we could either have been kept waiting for another 3 months or they can just power through, post the finished product and then give us 4 days (what we had) to review it before Obama signed it. I think the 2 day promise was a stupid publicity stunt. I still would've liked to see the LLA pop online for 5 days anyway.

The 3k tax credit was being referred to by representatives on both sides as the "walmart tax credit" since that 3k in relief wouldn't help unless you were paying your employees shit. It was:
"hire more employees for cheaper!"
"how much cheaper? I pay them all no less than 20k/year in salary and another 8k in benefits."
"how about 3 THOUSAND dollars!?"
"um... "

Well then our difference in opinion clearly lays with our definitions of "emergency."

I'd suspect you'd rather skip over that argument and get right to the one about why he gave himself that loophole.

/it's cause he's a sneaky bastard.

hell, if he gives us the 5 days on any of the stuff he signs, then it's still a huge step forward for government transparency. Alternatively, it could serve as a way for him to sneak legislation through unnoticed. If he drops all the piddly stuff online and then passes some sweeping expansion of the patriot act, I'll be a touch miffed.

I like the idea that bills will be available in their completed form to the public for five days before they are signed into law, but I'm not losing any sleep over that idea not being implemented well.

My frustration is only that I expect the President to live up to all of his/her promises, and so far he has not. It frustrates me further that we seem to be confusing "immensely large and incredibly important" with "emergency." To me, it is even more important that the public can read such a substantial, expensive bill. Since no one's rights are being infringed, and the entire nation is not within hours of collapse, I think applying the term "emergency" to this bill is downright irresponsible.

I'm really not sure what your expectations are for a president...

I wrote a fairly lengthy reaction to your post and really it just boils down to that.

I'd *like* our president to keep all of the promises he made during his campaign... but it's certainly not an expectation. My expectation is that the man is human and will try and live up to his promises. My expectation of our president is that he *won't* just go on vacation for the first 3 months in office. My expectation is that he will abide by the law in this country and not overstep his constitutionally ordained powers.

All his promises? Dude, you're just looking to k'vetch. I'll call him out when he effs up, and I have already. But keep things in perspective.