While crafting a bill intended to rescue the U.S. economy this week, lawmakers couldn’t stop themselves from adding billions of dollars in tax breaks that have little to do with restoring confidence in financial markets.
Senators quietly tucked a number of earmarks into the tax package of the 451-page bill that was passed Wednesday night and is expected to be put to a vote in the House today: a $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children; a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners; $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry; $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers; and a $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill…
The tax earmarks were scarcely noticed during the Senate debate over a bill that featured a $700 billion bailout package and a $112 billion tax package, including the renewal of popular tax breaks for businesses and renewable energy projects and a one-year effort to shield at least 20 million Americans from paying the alternative minimum tax.
The bill was approved easily, 74-25, winning support even from lawmakers who have crusaded against earmarks – including Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, who warned last week that he might oppose a bailout bill if it included more pork-barrel spending.“It is completely unacceptable for any kind of earmarks to be included in this bill,” he said in a speech in Freeland, Mich. “It would be outrageous for legislators and lobbyists to pack this rescue plan with taxpayer money for favored companies. This simply cannot happen.”
But, of course, it did.
Paulson’s original proposal was 3 pages long. The Senate passed on 451 pages. The House version is over 1,000 pages. Do you think it has less Pork than the Senate version – or are they all greedy bastards?
Thanks, Cinaedh
Anyone calling their representatives now????
Anyone who advocated that their Rep support the bail out is a moron.
$700,000,000,000 boondoggle (not counting pork)
Business as usual, plenty of time to thank their sponsors, despite the supposed “emergency” status of this bill.
How can they write a 1000 page bill in less than a week?
This makes me miss Ross Perot.
#4 Easy they just added other Bills (Pork) to it. Cut and Paste.
Hmmmm… Pork.
I want to know how this bill is “improved”. It was a $700B stinker last week when it was voted down. They added over $100B in pork to it…and now it’s acceptable?
Horseshit.
BACON!!!!
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd237/tenpoint5/S8000610.jpg
Calin, the reason it failed is because the Banker’s didn’t buy enough votes in the first go around. they thought the fear mongering would be enough. This time they threw enough bribe money around.
Time for Operation Clean Sweep.
Rules:
1. Any incumbent up for office this November who benefitted in any way from the pork in the Senate version of the Bail Out Bill will lose their job.
2. Any Congressman who voted against the Bail Out Bill last Monday will lose their job.
3. Anybody who supported any of these will not be voted for.
4. Any lawmaker who voted against any regulatory measure in the last decade will be taken out into the alley and shot.
Thank goodness we have a political system that is self correcting.
Reduced taxes are considered “pork” now?
You do understand the difference between handing out to people money they didn’t earn, and lowering how much of a person’s earnings you confiscate?
But that discussion is beyond the issue of why these unrelated items made their way into an emergency credit bailout bill in the first place.
What the article fails to mention is that the pork was not added to the bailout… the bailout was added to the pork. This pork was an existing bill that had already passed the House and been sent to the Senate (all funding bills have to originate in the House). It was expected to pass easily in the Senate, so the bailout was tacked on and passed, then sent back to the House to vote on the change.
Typical or congress, both Democrats and Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.
Text of the bill.
I like the rum part, rum drinks go go especially well with pork.
And the wool, nice to know sweaters will be cheap when I am freezing my butt off this winter because I afford heating oil
Heh, the bill passes and then the market follows suit by tanking.
#16
DJIA 10317.02 -165.83
Nasdaq 1949.26 -27.46
S&P 500 1098.14 -16.14
Wrong treatment for the illness.
#4 BillBC, well, I imagine that our elected representatives craft bills and amenements way before they might even be brought up for consideration and keep them “on the shelf”, waiting for an opportunity to tack them on ANY LEGISLATION that crosses their desk, with even the slimmest chance of passing !!! And they keep doing it, over and over, until it sticks to something that does get through the process. Then they have to sweat out the Senate/House Joint Conference to see if it sticks to the final bill, more log rolling ensues !!! (what fun !!!), then when BOTH HOUSE AGREE, the Congress is done !!! It goes on the the Prez, who signs it OR NOT !!! Depending. And even if he does, there exists something called “Signing Statements” which Bush uses to IGNORE AND EVEN BREAK THE LAW !!! And the Congress will do nothing about it !!! Franklin said “We give you a Republic, if you can keep it”, but we have LOST IT TO THE CORPORATIONS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS !!!
That pig is one of the “mavericks.”
Fear and Loathing and Marshall Law in DC.
Don’t blame the just Republicans (counting Bush) nor just the Democrats. Blame those voting for it. All of them.
What is the price of a Congressional vote? That’s seems to be one of those questions that if you have to ask, you don’t have enough money.
I’m so disgusted and ashamed (and tired of hearing about it – yes I called all of my reps, e-mailed and wrote a number of times) that I really don’t want to hear any more about it. I’m just going to count my money, stocks did go up didn’t they?
The arrogance of both the Dems and the Repubs is amazing. Even with an 18% approval rating and a clear majority against this bill, they proceed to not only pass it but in broad daylight tack on the pork. Why? Because they odds are they will not be voted out and the donations will continue to flow.
All it will take is one more major event and this country will tear apart at the seams. We are too close to the edge.
In normal times, a bill of half this physical size and a tenth the amount would take weeks or longer to pass, and would be subject to a decent amount of scrutiny. (Lots of crap still gets through, but mostly as a result of mutual back scratching).
Here we have a jaw droppingly large bill with all kinds of stuff padded on in a very short amount of time and political leaders standing over everyone’s shoulders with a hatchet. That means: NO due diligence for all the add ons. The main bill itself ($700B) is suspect. The added on lard is almost certainly to be a nightmare. Who knows what kinds of crap was added under cover of night with no oversight?
And that’s just the small stuff. We could also focus on things like bailing out the pension plans for the unions after the crooks running the pensions into the ground got rich. (NB: Is anyone making you whole on your 401K because it has decreased in value? No, I didn’t think so. Too bad for you…you still get to pay to make the unions’ pensions whole).
#11, Amazing isn’t it, how some people think.
However, sometimes “tax breaks” and “tax credits” affect nothing more than import taxes on imports.
So a tax cut on sugar might mean they are raising the import tax on foreign sugar, allowing local sugar manufacturers to raise their prices. Sure, the sugar manufacturer is making more money but the money the gov takes, though the same percentage-wise, is higher overall. All the sugar manufacturer sees is a larger take-home number.
And who pays for the increased cost of the sugar?
This bill bothers me. I let my Congressman know.
# 25 – Your congressman doesn’t care. They all ignored the switchboard being jammed with calls of opposition.
They are trying to use our money to buy our votes while running us all deeper in dept and so for there is no evidence that they have improved much of anything as for as the credit crunch goes.
They handle our money the way a three year old would handle an uzzie, with reckless abandon.
If the reckless behavior doesn’t stop there can be only one outcome and it’s going to hurt, hurt, hurt.
#25
Good job Mr. Confusion. I don’t always agree with you, but at least you’re participating.
# 4 BillBC said:
“How can they write a 1000 page bill in less than a week?”
Practice, man, practice!
This really makes me sick. Imagine you got yourself in a financial mess due to the fact that you don’t administer yourself well. Now since you have no credit rating you borrow a large sum from your family, who by the way, have nothing to spare but can get a mortgage on their house. While you’re waiting for the cash you start making plans, new clothes, vacations, new PC and TV etc etc. Eventually you and your family end up living under an underpass. A real loser no? So where’s the difference, aparte from scale, it seems to me to be the same.