Sunday the Senate passed the $447 billion spending bill with a number of earmarks (5,224 special spending requests) totaling $3.9 billion.  The Peterson-Pew panel calls for immediate action to stabilize our GDP to debt ratio at 60%, according to the San Francisco Gate.  Our GDP to debt ratio is estimated to be over 90% by the end of this year.  Soon, more than 100% of our gross domestic product will be used to service our national debt.

Pelosi has opposed the idea, and so has the powerful retiree group AARP. But Pelosi now would agree to it as long as a “pay-as-you-go” budget rule favored by conservative “Blue Dog” House Democrats is included.

That would require new spending to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases.

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Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has railed about stimulus pork, singling out for ridicule $54 million going to Napa Valley’s “wine train.”

“Wine train”?  Conflict of interest anyone?  If you’re unaware, Pelosi and her husband own a vineyard worth up to $25 million in Napa Valley.

John Boehner represents Ohio’s 8th district in the House.  He strongly criticizes Pelosi’s actions in the Hillsboro Times-Gazette.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) completed the latest chapter in this lengthy story by ramming a massive $447 billion spending bill through Congress that contains double-digit funding increases to Washington agencies.

In addition to these excessive increases, the bill includes more than 5,200 earmarks, including $300,000 for music and education programs at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where they pay the employee who oversees the props more than $530,000 in salary and benefits.  Regardless of whether these are worthy projects, are they really more important than our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay the debt we’re piling up to do all this stuff?

[...]

This is just another ploy to increase spending at a time when our national debt hit a record $12 trillion last month.  Before the end of the year, Democrats plan to raise the debt limit by another $1.8 trillion dollars.

World Net Daily posted a lengthy article about John Dennis, who is running against Nancy Pelosi next year.

The attention is well deserved, as the liberty candidate (running Republican) shares many of the nation’s grievances over the House Speakers irresponsible actions in recent times.

He blasted Pelosi’s “disastrous” legislative agenda advocating government-run health care, cap and trade and the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, a bill that would give the president “emergency” control of the Internet.

“Everything that Nancy Pelosi has her hands on is anti-liberty and pro-government power,” Dennis said, with a laugh

Dennis is a successful businessman and real estate investor.  He is very concerned with our nation’s spend-thrift attitude, especially considering our current economic meltdown.

He said the nation cannot ignore a $12.5 trillion mountain of debt that doesn’t include unfunded liabilities.

“We have no choice, we’ve got to do this,” he said. “Either that, or we’re going to debase the dollar and have a back-door default on what we owe. That will create chaos in the world.”

Dennis calls cap-and-trade a “poor excuse for a new tax.”

Regarding the Department of Education, he brings up an example unfamiliar to most Americans: Holland.

“What I found was, instead of the money going to the schools, the money followed the kids,” he said. “That’s the objective – to actually have the money go to the kids as opposed to being stuck in schools or some bureaucratic organization like the Department of Education, which may be the single biggest waste of money in the federal government.”

Dennis is an NRA member and proud gun owner.

“You have the right to your person, and you have the right to your property,” he said. “Without the right to defend your property and your person, then those rights are meaningless. That just goes without saying.”

He believes in allowing the free market to work properly, meaning that the government should step aside on such issues as healthcare and social security, which he believes citizens should be able to opt out of, considering it has become a “pyramid scheme.”

Above all, he is a constitutionalists, suggesting most of our problems can be solved simply by resuming our nation’s original governing intent.

“I want to go back and look at every portion of the budget and say, ‘Is this constitutional, or isn’t it?’” he said. “If it isn’t, let’s cut it and manage to somehow create a surplus as opposed to a deficit. Let’s start paying down the debt that we owe.”

Read More: World Net Daily