We listened to this president talk about a new climate in Washington. Remember change you can believe in, transparency, nation building, kum bay ya around the campfire and a brave new world. Well it looks like it is never going to happen, the House passed a huge spending measure combining major boosts for domestic agencies and foreign aid with more than 5,000 back-home projects sought by lawmakers. The 1,088-page, $1.1 trillion measure would provide $447 billion in operating budgets for ten Cabinet departments, awarding increases averaging almost 10%. On top of that comes more than $600 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. How crazy is this? They do not get it! Try to name one company, which is increasing their budget by 10% this year. The 221-202 vote to approve the House-Senate compromise bill sends it to the Senate, which immediately voted 56-43 to begin debate. This is the only good news as there are not 60 votes here and with all the arm twisting over healthcare we can hope this winds up under the same pile of dust cap-n-trade is. This is insane it was only eight months ago when the economic stimulus bill and a $410 billion measure in March. This one has it all increases for veterans’ programs, NASA and the FBI with a pay raise for federal workers and help for car dealers. Then there is $2.8 billion request for economic and security aid to Afghanistan and $1.6 billion for aid to Pakistan. There is a provision to let Amtrak passengers carry handguns in their checked baggage, provided the guns are unloaded and locked in a secure container. It would permit detainees held at Guantanamo to be transferred to the United States to stand trial but not to be released. This is not change my friends this is the same old we are in charge and it is time to do it the same old way it has always been done.