Algo no cuadra

Something about this omnibus spending bill has been bothering me (I mean besides the fact that it’s loaded with pork and earmarks and entitlement spending that will destroy what’s left of the economy). During the campaign Barack Obama promised to change the travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans, overturning the executive order issued by President Bush in 2004 that limited such trips to Cuba to once every three years. What I can’t explain is why Obama didn’t just issue his own executive order. He didn’t need congress to add the amendment to this bill. In fact the presence of the amendment almost sabotaged the bill when Senators Bob Menendez and Bill Nelson voiced their displeasure with it. The Treasury Department had to go through all sorts of gyrations to assure the senators that there would be no substantive change to the embargo beyond the relaxation of the aforementioned travel restrictions. The whole thing is weird. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.