Obama has only been in office for approximately 70 days.  Just 70 days.
 
But, in just 70 days, President Barack Obama and his liberal majority in Congress have managed to:
  • Spend over $700 billion of our taxpayer money on a so-called stimulus plan
    - a plan that contained $50 million for salt marsh mice in San Francisco and $8 billion, that is BILLION, for a new high speed rail line between Hollywood and Las Vegas
    - a stimulus that saddled every single American family with $9,400 in debt
    - a plan that will allow liberal groups like ACORN to get millions - even billions - of dollars in taxpayer money
  • Spend even more in the Fiscal Year 2009 budget by raising spending 8% - $400 billion - while passing close to 9,000 new spending earmarks
  • Help spend a large amount of the over $565 billion of TARP recovery money... leaving $135 billion to spend, according to Treasury Secretary Geithner on the Sunday news shows, and rumors abound they are likely to ask for more.
Now, Barack Obama is coming back to the American people, through the Congress, this week to ask for more!
 
 
This week the Congress is expected to take final votes on President Obama's massive new spending budget plan.
 
As a WALL STREET JOURNAL editorial noted, "Democrats have passed laws that increase spending by $134 billion in the last six months of this fiscal year alone, and $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. And that's all before (Obama's) 2010 budget proposals."
 
CNN's reported in March that in addition to all of the spending that has already happened, "Nancy Pelosi (is) Open to Second Stimulus Package."
 
As Stephen Moore recently noted in the WEEKLY STANDARD, already in the first few days of Obama's administration, "the federal government has authorized more debt spending than Ronald Reagan did in his eight years in office."
 
It is enough to make your head spin.  But we can't give up without a fight.  We simply cannot sit back and stay silent when they are looking to spend trillions more.
 
After you sign the petition we are also going to ask you to call your House and Senate members.  We are going to give you the numbers to do it, because we need to hit them from all angles.
The President's budget increases spending by $1 trillion over 10 years.
 
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported that this new budget will create huge deficits including $1.85 trillion just this year alone...  $100 billion larger than what Obama projected. CBO estimated next year's deficit will reach $1.38 trillion, about $200 billion more than the White House projected.   
 
Worse, the CBO reported that between 2010 and 2019 the government's deficits will total $9.27 trillion, about $2.3 trillion more than the Obama had forecast and told the American people.
 
As Bloomberg Financial News reported, "as a share of the economy, CBO said, the deficit would total 13 percent this year, 10 percent next year and remain above 4 percent through 2019. The CBO said government debt will eventually double to 82 percent of the nation's gross domestic product by 2019 from 41 percent last year."
 
Can you image a national debt that is 82 percent of the our national gross domestic product?
 
The Wall Street Journal called this "Obama Sticker Shock."
 
 
You might have noted that Obama doesn't call all of this money "wasteful spending," he calls it "investing" in our nation's future.  But what does Barack Obama want us to "invest" in?
 
As the WASHINGTON POST reported in their analysis of Obama's proposed budget, it would increase spending at the Department of Environmental Protection (EPA) by a whopping 35% in just that one agency alone.   The Post stated it is a "nearly $3 billion boost... the largest in the EPA's nearly 40-year history."
 
The budget contains spending for ultra liberal positions on climate change and enacts language that says our government will "aim for universality of health coverage" (ie. the government takeover of health care).
 
The Post also reported on the huge expansion of government and the number of additional federal bureaucrats that will result from the budget saying, "President Obama's budget is so ambitious, with vast new spending ... that experts say he probably will need to hire tens of thousands of new federal government workers to realize his goals."
 
Huge amounts of increased spending, liberal budget priorities and more federal bureaucrats in Washington, is that what our nation needs at this time? 
 
 
Possibly even worse than all of the wasteful spending; however, is a complicated scheme of tax increases in the budget.

Remember over $4.00 a gallon gas?  Well President Obama wants to increases taxes on energy companies that could result in higher gas prices and higher electricity prices.  As many have noted, there are complicated provisions for a cap-and-trade scheme that will amount to a huge tax likely to increase the cost of natural gas and electricity. 
 
Obama's budget proposal also increases taxes on those making charitable deductions. 
 
At a time when charities are strained trying to help those affected by economic crisis, Obama's budget will actually decrease incentives for charitable giving.  Churches, local aid agencies and even education institutions would suffer. 

Martin Feldstein, president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said in an Op Ed that, "President Obama's proposal to limit the tax deductibility of charitable contributions would effectively transfer more than $7 billion a year from the nation's charitable institutions to the federal government."  That's right, Obama's budget will take funds out of charities and in essence transfer them to the federal government.
 
All told, estimates are that there are more than $1 trillion in TAX INCREASES from Obama's budget bill.
Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), whom Obama tried to woo into his cabinet, said Obama "is proposing the largest tax increase in history, much of it aimed at taxing small business people who have been, over the years, the best job creators in our economy.  And further, he is proposing a massive new national sales tax on your electric bill, so that every time you turn on a light switch in your house, you will be hit with a new tax -- and it averages over $3,000 per household."
 
 
After you sign the petition we are also going to ask you to call your House and Senate members.  As we said, we will provide you their numbers because we want to hit them with petitions, with feet on the ground from ACU in the halls of Congress and with phone calls.  
 
The budget simply spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.
 
We need to shine the light on this budget and fight back.
 
Huge amounts of wasteful spending, huge tax increases and even more debt on top of the stimulus package, the 2009 budget and the bailouts is not what our nation needs at this time.
 
Please sign the petition here, now, and help ACU on this critical endeavor.
 
Sincerely,
DEW 
Dennis Whitfield
Executive Vice President
 
P.S.  The budget is likely to be voted on this week.  So please do not delay.  Please sign the petition here, now, and support ACU's efforts on this issue.  When you do, also look for the instructions on the Thank You page after you sign for how you can also personally call your Members of Congress and urge them to vote no.
 
 
.ACU.
 
 
The American Conservative Union