One of my favorite Ronald Reagan quotes is this one, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” Unfortunately too many people have fallen into the trap of government dependency. President Obama would change that quote from the “most terrifying words” to the “most comforting words.”

From last nights press conference, with my emphasis.

It is absolutely true that we can’t depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth. That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.

It is only government that can break the vicious cycle, where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs.

I do have to give the President high marks for chutzpah. He was actually able to say this with a straight face.

It also contains an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability so that every American will be able to go online and see where and how we’re spending every dime. What it does not contain, however, is a single pet project, not a single earmark, and it has been stripped of the projects members of both parties found most objectionable.

And later, in answering a reporter’s question.

But when they start characterizing this as pork, without acknowledging that there are no earmarks in this package — something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years — then you get a feeling that maybe we’re playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people.

Well, the government is here to help. We are in serious trouble.

One of our local papers, The Lakeland Ledger, has a few quotes by my representative, Adam Putnam, regarding the no-stimulus stimulus bill.

The only thing some provisions of the latest bailout bill are likely to stimulate is a hefty tax burden on the nation’s grandchildren, said U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow.

[...]

Putnam said there is what he calls pork in the bill that shouldn’t be there. One such project, he said, is $200 million to resod the 700-acre National Mall.

“There is other pork, and there are projects that may be good but don’t belong in an economic stimulus package,” he said.

[...]

“We are going to be reading about things for weeks that were buried in this bill,” he said.

Putnam is pinning his hopes on the Senate, where Republicans there could force alterations to the stimulus package and send it back to the House.

“I would certainly hope it would make some changes,” he said. “The Senate is a more deliberative body and will study it in greater detail. In the House, we’ll have about an hour of debate.”

Ed Morrisey points out the effort made by Rob “N.Z. Bear” Nepal with the site Read The Stimulus. Ed says,

Rob has transformed the 1,588 pages of legislation and committee reports into a searchable website designed to shine a light on the Congressional porkfest. What had once been an inaccessible and forbidding mountain as daunting as Everest now becomes accessible to those motivated to find the pork, waste, and outright fraud in them thar hills.

Pork, Waste, and Outright Fraud — plenty to be found there.