Jeffrey Scharf, Everybody's Business: Is this change?

President Barack Obama promised to bring us "change we can believe in." He promised a new era of bipartisanship in Washington. He promised to deliver us from "the failed policies of the last eight years."

Now that his first major piece of legislation -- the mammoth $787 billion "stimulus" bill -- is law, how is he doing?

If bipartisanship means bringing congressional Democrats and Republicans together, his score is nearly zero. Not one Republican in the House and only three in the Senate voted for the bill. Although the president deserves credit for the symbolism of going to Capitol Hill to meet Republican legislators, the substance of his message -- "I won" -- was accurate but not conciliatory. While the president was right to point out that Republicans have no credibility on the issue of spending restraint after eight years of binging under former President George W. Bush, he seemed not to notice that congressional Democratic pieties about "pay as you go" budgeting and complaints about Bush squandering the Clinton surplus have been revealed as the height of hypocrisy.

What about change from the failed policies of the past? Exactly which failed policies does the stimulus bill repudiate?

The Bush policy that brought us bridges to nowhere? Not quite. Despite assurances from candidate Obama that he would go line by line through the federal budget to eliminate funding for programs that don't work, the 1,073 page-long stimulus bill was voted out of the House before the ink was dry. Members had no time to read the bill, let alone post it in on the Internet for public evaluation.

The Bush policy of running up huge deficits? Hardly. The stimulus bill blows a bigger hole in the federal deficit than anything enacted by Bush or -- horrors -- Ronald Reagan. Even if the stimulus creates or saves the 3 million jobs promised by Obama -- which remains to be seen -- couldn't we do it for less than $260,000 per job?

The Bush policy of tax giveaways? The stimulus bill repeats the mistaken and ineffective temporary tax cuts of 2008, 2001 and 1981.

The Bush policy of tax cuts for the rich? The Obama stimulus leaves them untouched.

The policy that left us "dangerously dependent on foreign oil?" There is no energy tax to encourage conservation and keep us from falling back into old, wasteful habits.

If anything, the Obama stimulus takes the proclivities of Bush to cut taxes while increasing spending and makes them bigger.

As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Jeffrey R. Scharf is president of Scharf Investments. Contact him at jeffrey@scharfinvestments.com.