It is beyond clear that Barack Obama and the Democrats in congress are using “economic stimulus” as a ruse to push through their socialist agenda — expanding the role of government in our lives, creating more dependent classes, bloating inept social programs and running up a massive tab expecting some magical way to pay for it all later.

Call it the Stimulating Government Act of 2009:

“The Democrat bill won’t stimulate anything but more government and more debt,” Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the Republican conference, said Tuesday. “The slow and wasteful spending in the House Democrat bill is a disservice to millions of Americans who want to see this Congress take immediate action to get this economy moving again.”

Want proof? The Congressional Budget Office’s report on the 1,588-page bill shows that nearly 80 percent of the stimulus — which we’re being told “has” to pass quickly — won’t be spent till 2010 and later. Most of it won’t hit for more than two years.

If this was about digging the American economy out of this recession, that money would hit this year, especially since most recessions last about 18 months (which means there’s somewhere between 6 months and year left).

But no, this isn’t about stimulating the economy. This is about pork. This is about the growth of government. This is about a Democratic social agenda.

This bill, which the House is expected to pass today and David Brooks described as lacking any strategic vision, spends $223,000 for every job it supposedly creates. $223,000.

How did that happen? Well, there’s plenty of pork, from contraception to new computers at the State Department to endowments to new grass for the national mall.

But there’s more. Billions go into 150 different government programs. Basically, this is “good for government, bad for the economy.”

Just go down the list of expenditures in this bill and you’ll find funding for every item near and dear to a Democrat’s heart — Medicare, foodstamps, Pell grants, welfare, “green” technology, etc. — for years to come. And if you think those programs will shrink back down once this “stimulus” runs out, think again.

Not to mention the new welfare program of giving people who don’t pay taxes magical tax refunds out of the air. Basically, it’s money for nothing.

It’s brilliant, really. Create a crisis and then piggy-back your Democratic agenda on a recession.

For all the talk of change during the campaign, we’ve got to wonder what happened to Obama during the transition. He once spoke of eliminating government programs that aren’t working. Shoot, as recently as last week, during his inaugural lecture, he spoke of the new “era of responsibility.” What a load of well spoken crap.

As many have said, now he’s George W. Bush on steroids. Washington already gave us the $700 billion TARP boondoggle last fall, the $350 billion housing bailout last summer, the bailout of Fannie and Fredddie — now we’re talking about spending between $825 billion and $900 billion to grow the government (and actually, the CBO says we’re looking at a $1.1 trillion tab)? And don’t think the banks are through yet.

Where is the government going to get all that money?

The real moment of truth here is for the Republicans in congress — can they really be what John McCain calls the “loyal opposition” to Pelosi, Obama and Reid (POR for short)? Or will they cave under the bipartisanship anvil?

House Minority Leader Boehner is telling his caucus to vote against the bill. Maybe they can pull some Democrats with them. And any Republicans that say “aye” should be targeted by their own party in two years.