By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

Over the past week or so I’ve been hearing a lot of bashing going on in respect to the amount of money that President Obama is burning through – first through the Stimulus Bill and then with his proposed budget outline.  While pointing fingers and laying heaps of blame on the past President for what they have obviously disagreed with, the Obama Administration has been taking their own hits for their contributions to the unimaginable federal deficit.

Instead of joining the crowd on the supposed conservative bandwagon and ranting and raving about the way President Obama is destroying the economy as well as the future for generations to come, I’d like to refocus the spotlight to where it belongs – on Congress.  It’s getting old for Presidential Administrations to be considered the center of attention for spending by the federal government.

President’s may play a leadership  role in proposing and then cheerleading in support of their proposals, but Congress gets to decide what spending gets done – as well as where the spending goes.  They should not be able to get a free pass and duck the responsibility for approving massive, irresponsible levels of spending.  This lack of accountability not only applies to the current approach of how spending is taking place, but also is true for the “past eight years” which lawmakers can’t seem to blame enough for the current inability to spend enough to “fix”.

Part of the reason for bringing the focus on the spending, back to where it belongs is that it doesn’t matter who’s in the White House if the same run-away deficit spenders keep being re-elected to Congress.  These officials, especially those in charge of the majority party in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representative, can’t be allowed to take credit for passing legislation that supposedly will help America get back on it’s economic feet and then hide (especially at election time) behind the blame umbrella, pointing fingers at somebody else for the spending they authorized.

President Truman is historically credited for his leadership position -- “The Buck Stops Here”. 

While this point of view appropriately recognizes a leadership role, played by a U.S. President – we should be looking to and holding responsible our legislative branch for the red ink surging through our economy.