So that $700 billion bailout bill that pundits and opinion writers just absolutely demanded we should pass? People like Michael Landauer, who demanded the bill be passed without even knowing what was in it or how it would work? Well, its worse than you thought.
Leave aside it’s just a horrible idea to bailout companies that fail, no matter what the repercussions. Nevermind the fact that intervention by government is what got us in this mess in the first place. This turkey they passed Friday is so loaded with pork and bad ideas it really is a financial PATRIOT ACT.
Last week, the Bush administration proposed a three-page bill to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. It died in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week.
On Friday, though, the House approved a far bigger, broader, and beefier version of the bill–which has ballooned to a remarkable 442 pages. The vote was 263 to 171, with the bulk of the opposition coming from Republicans. Because the Senate already approved the measure, it immediately went to President Bush, who signed it into law.
On the theory that this would be a way to convince previously skeptical Democrats to approve the measure, one large chunk of the bailout bill is devoted to renewable energy, energy-efficient appliances, and so on (the “Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008″). The authors lured Republicans with protections from the alternative minimum tax (via the “Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008″).
That includes, as the New York Post pointed out, millions in tax breaks and related pork for kids’ wooden arrows, Puerto Rican rum producers, auto race tracks, and corporations operating in American Samoa. (The likely explanation for the latter: StarKist has a large tuna-canning operation in American Samoa. And StarKist’s parent company happens to be located in the district of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)