PolitiFact.com – which is tracking how many of his 510 campaign promises President Barack Obama’s is keeping – reports that with the stroke of a pen, roughly 10 percent of them will be fulfilled by the “stimulus” bill he signed yesterday:

Much of the congressional debate about the bill focused on individual spending proposals and whether they were pork barrel projects that critics considered wasteful. But that debate obscured how much the bill advances Obama’s agenda. Just a month into his presidency, Obama has used the economic stimulus to pass major elements of his domestic agenda on energy, tax policy and education. …

Not many new presidents have the political capital to propose spending nearly $1 trillion within weeks of taking office. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve taken considerably longer and been much more difficult to get so much through Congress. Obama, aided by a solid Democratic majority in both houses, did it in a month. …

After the November election, PolitiFact staffers combed through Obama’s speeches, position papers, Web site and debate transcripts and identified his campaign promises. Of the 510 we found, 19 were tagged as related to the economy.

But the new law includes dozens more that weren’t initially intended as an economic stimulus. On energy, it addresses promises such as No. 452, “Weatherize 1 million homes per year” and No. 468, “Require hybrid fleet at the White House.” On the environment, it addresses No. 500, “Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency” and No. 263, “Improve water quality.”

The bill addresses many other promises that could be labeled “miscellaneous,” such as No. 278, “Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires,” No. 371, “Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps,” and No. 345, “Enhance earth mapping.”

In addition, several provisions of the bill have undercut - if not undone - President Bill Clinton’s signature accomplishment, welfare reform.  

Republicans who voted against the “stimulus” bill – all but three Senators – also point to $25 billion in provisions that are "questionable or non-stimulative" – such as regional high-speed rail projects (including a new route that connects Los Angeles to Las Vegas), and expanding a tax credit for automobile and truck buyers to include motorcycles and recreational vehicles. Add to these “$2 billion for a power plant in Illinois, $75 million for the Smithsonian, $300 million for government cars, dozens of other embarrassing projects,” notes The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel.

Meanwhile, even The Washington Post describes the process by which the “stimulus” bill was drafted as “secretive” and quotes Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), lamenting that Congress "reverted to its bad habit of larding up bills with special interest pork projects that stimulate reelection campaigns rather than the economy." No wonder the “roll call votes came less than 24 hours after House-Senate conferees had agreed to their deal … before Members could even read it, much less have time to broadcast the details so the public could offer its verdict,” according to The Journal.

Still, this exploitation of a national crisis for political gain isn’t good enough for liberals, who whine that the $787 billion (not including interest) bill “does not go far enough” and “are already looking ahead to future legislation that they hope will do more,” The WaPo reports:

[T]hey also wonder whether Obama could have used the opportunity of a large congressional majority and a moment of economic emergency to pass a bigger package, with a better chance of boosting the economy and with more of his priorities intact.

As Obama moves on to issues such as health care and energy, liberals are debating how to ensure that the stimulus outcome does not define the outer boundaries of his agenda, so that future legislation is not limited, as the stimulus was, by the demands of centrist senators such as Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).

Some say Obama must aim higher next time, so that compromises produce a more satisfactory result. Some say he needs to take greater control of drafting legislation, instead of leaving it to Democratic congressional leaders, and needs to adopt a harder line with Republican legislators. And some say liberals and pro-Democratic interest groups such as labor unions must do a better job of pressuring moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats to back the president. …

Some Democrats hope that it will prove easier to build public support for future legislation that will have a clearer focus than a stimulus package that was, by definition, a rushed grab bag. 

“Freedomnomics” author John R. Lott, Jr. calculates that to pay for the “stimulus” bill goodies doled out by the Dems, every taxpayer in the U.S. is on the hook for $62,200:

With 90 million tax filers who actually pay taxes, the $787 billion means the average taxpayer will pay over $8,700. …

With the stimulus bill, the $700 billion financial bailout (half spent by Bush and half by Obama), and the bailout for the auto companies, this year’s deficit is already at about $1.7 trillion - almost $19,000 per taxpayer. With more possible bailouts for the auto industry and others, that total might rise further.

But the stimulus won’t just raise government expenditures for the next two years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that from 2010 to 2019 government expenditures for just 20 provisions will increase by almost $2.4 trillion. Assuming a 4.5 percent interest rate, that is the equivalent of about $1.9 trillion today. Adding that to the previous total brings the total to about $40,000 owed per taxpayer.

But that is not all the money that taxpayers are going to be on the hook for. Last week, the Obama administration promised another $2 trillion for the financial bailout. The decisions that we are making just this year are adding up to $5.6 trillion - $62,200 per taxpayer.

Think what you could have done with your money instead of buying re-election insurance for Congressional Dems.

Second Amendment Rights For Me, But Not For Thee: Part II

In an interview with Newsday last week Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) divulged that she keeps two rifles under the bed she shares with husband, Jonathan ("If I want to protect my family, if I want to have a weapon in the home, that should be my right. … I grew up in a house where my mom owns about eight guns."). Predictably, gun control advocates went apes**t, reports Newsday in a follow-up story: “Gun-control activists questioned the safety of placing guns under a bed where children can find them and burglars look first."

Gillibrand's spokesman, Matt Canter, told the paper: “Given that the location of the guns has been disclosed, they have been moved for security reasons.” He added that the guns were unloaded and stored in a lockbox when they were under her bed, and that the ammunition had been kept in a separate location.

Living downstate from Gillibrand in NYC, with its draconian and senseless gun control laws, The Stiletto does not have the same right the Senator and her mother do to protect herself in the event of a home invasion. Last month when Gov. David Patterson (D) announced Gillibrand’s appointment to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, The Stiletto rejoiced that law-abiding city dwellers who wanted all-but-impossible to get carry permits would finally have a champion. But under the tutelage of The New York Times and gun control activists, she soon started dancing away from her once-absolute support of Second Amendment rights.

Editorial Note: For some reason Newsday felt compelled to unearth and report this nugget of information: “A search of the Lexis-Nexis database showed that Gillibrand has a Montana hunting license.” Not that there’s anything wrong – or newsworthy - with that, but her spokesperson hastily clarified that it is “actually a fishing license.”

Stimulus Chasers

Boston-based law firm Foley Hoag has formed an interdisciplinary team comprised of five practice groups - government relations; energy technology and renewables; environment; infrastructure and privatization; and life sciences – to help clients get their hands on federal and state “stimulus” package funds, The National Law Journal reports. “We recognize this is an extraordinary opportunity to help advance the interests of our clients," said team leader Douglas McGarrah in a prepared statement. 

In what may yet turn out to be a related development, The Washington Post reports that “[d]esign and engineering companies helping to build the nation's highways ran up millions of dollars in inappropriate charges at the expense of taxpayers, including bills for parties, luxury car leases and hefty paychecks for executives,” according to a report by auditors in the Department of Transportation's inspector general's office released earlier this month . Among the "unallowable expenses" singled out:

† $355,767 to pay the personal income taxes of executives.

† $301,667 to lease 45 automobiles, including Mercedes, BMW and other luxury brands.

† $247,685 for dinners, tickets to sporting events, theme-holiday parties.

† $60,000 paid to a consultant with only a verbal agreement.

† $35,352 charged by two firms for "image-enhancing items such as golf shirts."

The audit took four years to complete, and was based on a sampling of 41 firms out of 3,580 with ongoing state departments of transportation contracts.

“Octomom” Spawns YouTube Parody

YouTube celebrity Jodie Rivera (AKA Venetian Princess) posted a rap video on YouTube that parodies mother-of-fourteen-including-octuplets Nadya Suleman in a rap ("She had complications: Childhood aspirations. That's her explanation. Pops 'em out like a toaster! Needs a passafire holster! And a pimped out stretch stroller! She's a food stamp high roller!") that includes a scene of an obstetrics nurse with a baseball mitt catching the babies as they come flying out of the womb as though from a pitching machine.  

[Hat Tip: Los Angeles Times]