http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29392525/
some snippets:
...legislation was "going to grow the government 8.3 percent ... but the family budget which has to pay for the federal budget only grew at 1.3 percent last year.
Given the extraordinary costs of the financial industry bailout and the stimulus, the White House projects this year's budget shortfall will be $1.5 trillion, triple the previous record of $455 billion in 2008
Democrats included in the spending measure a prohibition on a cost-of-living increase for members of Congress for the year. (what a relief!!
)
After persuading lawmakers to keep earmarks off the stimulus bill, Obama made no such attempt on the first non-emergency spending measure of his presidency. The result was that lawmakers claimed billions in federal funds for pet projects — a total of 8,570 earmarks at a cost of $7.7 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.