Promises, Promises - Statements Inoperative

Promises Promises: Obama's 'line by line' budget scrub faces roadblocks from Democratic allies — AP, Dec 8, 2008, 6:09 PM EST.

"We will go through our federal budget - page by page, line by line - eliminating those programs we don't need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way," Obama has said. …
Said the Obama transition official: "This is the first step in a very long process in which, over the next four years, we try to regain control over what it is the federal government is doing."

Ignore for the moment that the President does not have the Constitutional power for a line item veto — a fact "Johnnie Boy" McVain and the Press never had the temerity to point out to The One^™ and note what a difference a mere month makes:
Obama warns about years of trillion-dollar deficits — International Herald Tribune, January 7, 2009.

President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday braced Americans for the unparalleled prospect of "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come," a stark assessment of the budgetary outlook that he said would force his administration to impose tighter fiscal discipline on the government. …
Obama was not specific about the size of the deficit he expects, beyond his reference to "a trillion-dollar deficit or close to a trillion-dollar deficit" for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. Aides said later that the estimate — in line with what economists have been anticipating given the economy's rapid deterioration — did not include the costs of the proposed stimulus package, which could add hundreds of billions of dollars more to the red ink.

While it is folly to expect consistency of a politician, the scope of this turn-around is breathtaking. After all the Dhimmicrats railing against the profligate spending of Bush and the Republican Congress, since they have taken control of Congress in 2006 the federal deficit has balooned [The annual US budget deficit declined from $318 billion in 2005 to $162 billion in 2007 (the last Republican Congressional budget), but increased to $455 billion in 2008 (the last Democratic Congressional budget).]. Anyone who believes there is not massive waste in a budget with a deficit of $1 Trillion is a fool, but The One^™ and his cronies in Washington apparently think we are all fools, and perhaps they are correct.