You can’t wring a waffle.

Once your maple syrup levels have smacked the red end of the load gauge there really is no turning back. I got a little excited with the processed tree sap during my first visit to a Waffle House off I-26 in South Carolina. The scrawny diner made up the business district in a rural spot that could not even earn a dot on a Rand- McNally map.

The characters housed in booths and dressed in official Waffle House attire were entertaining enough to make the failure behind my hyper pour a little more tolerable to the palate.

Middle America always seems to juggle knives when I come around. I can’t help but stare in amazement and wonder what will happen next. The keepers of this great sub-nation probably polish their payroll silver a little harder than the rest of us. The dollar might be weak, but that just makes the appreciation of this green-paper lion stronger than ever.

As I attempted to again fork-squeeze my hemorrhaging breakfast, I did not hear any Waffle House talk on how the Obama administration’s latest encouragement was going to wallet-squeeze average Americans everywhere. The discussion was more on how to properly baste an egg and when and who was taking their morning break. I am willing to bet most in today’s work force find themselves equally oblivious to this latest Obamination, one that is pushing DOTs to purchase two signs that announce that a current road or bridge project is being built with funds from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Each Obama-service announcement costs about $1,600, and the money to pay for such an installation is being pulled straight from the Waffle House, the steak house and your house.

This is a pet project directed by one who pledged he was going to clean the cage of what has become a rabid animal in Washington in the form of earmarks. Obama promised during his campaign run that he was committed to returning pork spending to less than $7.8 billion a year. According to a recent USA Today study, earmarks may be at chin level for 2010, with the Senate including $12.6 billion in its 12 annual spending bills and the House throwing down $9.1 billion.

Yet here is the Obama administration asking those at the state level to deliver a financial favor, one that will show those average Americans how their tax dollars are being spent, right down to the nuts and bolts used to announce such political arrogance. At least the signs are not a required field to fill in, as far as we know. When Congress passed ARRA at $787 billion, Obama laid down his law as to how the bill was going to be executed, stating that his people will be watching over every dime. Any hint of spending abuse would be noted and dealt with in the future. Well, who is to say the same retribution will not be prescribed to those who decide to bypass this sign treatment?

Perhaps I am pouring gasoline on a meaningless spark, but what sours my breakfast grits is this: Obama wasted little time to reject a mileage-based tax to support future road and bridge work, saying he did not want to burden the American people, but he has no problem charming the states into executing this hidden tax that will do nothing to improve the rotting infrastructure in this country. I would like to return this plate of support for our D.C. leaders. I barely touched it.