Outrage

Remember how this spending bill is supposed to save the economy? Remember how the House rejected it on monday saying it wasn't the answer? Well, the senate has found the answer. Pork. Lots and lots of Pork. What started as a page bill giving the treasury additional authority to buy bad debts has now grown to hundreds of pages in length and contains tax breaks in no way connected with helping the economy. This bill is nothing short of an outrage and it is unconscionable that our lawmakers would use a crisis as an excuse to line the pockets of special interests.

The following excerpt from the new york post gives the details on some of the provisions of the "rescue" bill. Original article here.

The special provisions include tax breaks for:

* Manufacturers of kids' wooden arrows - $6 million.

* Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum producers - $192 million.

* Wool research.

* Auto-racing tracks - $128 million.

* Corporations operating in American Samoa - $33 million.

* Small- to medium-budget film and television productions - $10 million.

Another measure inserted into the bill appears to be a bald-faced bid aimed at winning the support of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who voted against the original version when it went down in flames in the House on Monday.

That provision - a $223 million package of tax benefits for fishermen and others whose livelihoods suffered as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill - has been the subject of fervent lobbying by Alaska's congressional delegation.

Some of the pork-barrel measures buried in the financial rescue package had been contained in a bill that previously passed the Senate, but died in the House.

The Congressional Budget Office said the package of breaks - including obvious pork and some more defensible tax-relief measures - will add about $112 billion to budget deficits over the next five years because the bill doesn't contain enough offsetting revenue hikes to keep the budget balanced.