And it is now 451-pages long. The path for ACORN money, Dodd’s “Housing Trust Fund” is still absent, but there is lots of other pork. Courtesy of Ed Morrissey, here are a few examples of how seriously congress is taking this “crisis”:
New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill
– Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
– Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
– 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)Tax earmark “extenders†in the bailout bill.
– Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
– American Samoa (Sec. 309)
– Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
– Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
– Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
– Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
– Railroads (Sec. 316)
– Auto Racing Tracks (317)
– District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
– Wool Research (Sec. 325)
Let’s see, 451-pages. What are the chances any clown in congress has actually read the thing? The vote begins tonight at 730p ET.
Bloomberg has their coverage of the bill, and Pat S. sends along this article from back in December titled, “Subprime Securities Market Began as `Group of 5′ Over Chinese.”
They need to call in economic and business experts to find the real fix to this thing. So far, it’s been another way to fleece us some more and the idiots that got us into this mess in the first place are having another chance at making the same mistakes again.
It is hopeless for me to effect my Senators.
They might vote against the bill, but they won’t cut the pork. Cantwell and Murry. 🙁
Earmarks! Good gosh – you just can’t keep a pig outta the sh*t, can you? Lipstick or not – this bailout still smells like sh*t!!!!! This says something about the arrogance of our Congress … here they are under the scrutiny of the entire nation (huge assumption I know..) and they’re still robbing the bank and pandering to their special interest! If we let them get away with this by NOT voting every one of them out – we deserve what we get.
Let’s see…they read all 451 pages in less than…what…24 hours?
My eyes are already rolling because the FIG came out with their ruling that the Chinese girl gymnasts were all of legal age to compete.
I can now see behind myself!!
No one has yet explained to me how the Senate can be acting on this now. It’s a money bill: it HAS to start in the House.
Is 451 pages the temperature at which citizens get burned by congress?
When Senators see this bill as an opportunity to increase federal expenditures rather than tighten the belt, it really starts making me skeptical about how bad it really is.
It must be at least a little bad, but if it was really bad, if the ship was really going down, would Senators really place the priority on enriching themselves at the time of their country’s greatest need?
Strike that, dumb question on my part; it is really saddening to know that even in the face of hardship that’s expected to affect the majority of the people, that the Senate is more caught up in enriching themselves than in taking care of the problem. Time for Republicans and Democrats alike to start getting more active in their primary process, so that we can clean out some of these inadequate incumbents when they run for their respective party’s nominations.
Would someone please explain how this “crisis” just happened to occur six weeks before the election? What was the trigger event that started it rolling? Was it Chuck Schumer’s premature announcement that an L.A. bank was going under and then it did?
Two years ago to the millisecond, Larry Craig’s restroom sumo stance and Mark Foley’s nasty messaging to pages became nonstop news, costing us congress. Now it’s this stinking mess, (blamed on Bush by Pelosi and Reid, naturally) with Wall Street and democrats chanting Chicken Little’s favorite rap lyrics and demanding free money.