Now we know why the original 3 page bailout bill did not pass.

[statdoc]

OK, settle down people. The so-called "bloated with pork" statement, provided by the media and repeated by everyone else, is not completely accurate.

Civics lesson: All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, and then be sent to the Senate. Anyone remember that from high school? When the US House rejected the bailout bill last week, the Senate could not legally pass it. So, what the Senate did was modify it slightly (to satisfy House members' original complaints), and pass it. To legally do anything with it, they then attached it to a routine annual tax/spending bill that had ALREADY been passed by the House. By attaching it to the House bill, they could then legally send the whole thing back to the House for the House to vote on the Senate's version, and get the whole thing approved.

All the stuff about wooden arrows, etc had already been voted on and approved a month ago, without anybody complaining. It was just awaiting routine approval by the Senate. It was a Constitutionally-required parliamentary maneuver to attach this bailout bill to the House's bill, just so the Senate could approve it and break the logjam on the Capitol.

[Last5oh]

Its like watching a re-run of the Eddie Murphy movie: "The Distinguished Gentleman"!!!

[motordavid]

Very good rant, BigR...
My only slight disagreement is that Paris is smarter and maybe less disingenuous, and certainly more up front
with her agenda than the entire fookin Congress...as I have written before, they could not fix lunch, let alone
the liquidity/credit/econ situ. Too bad we can't all vote for every idiot running for re-election this fall and have a
You're Outta Here button that covers them all. We are the gov't', but the "gov't" is no longer us.
BR,mD

[AzX5]

Bailout type Cost to taxpayers (Source: Reuters)
Financial bailout package approved this week up to or more than $700 billion
Bear Stearns financing $29 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization $200 billion
AIG loan and nationalization $85 billion
Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill $300 billion
Mortgage community grants $4 billion
JPMorgan Chase repayments $87 billion
Loans to banks via Fed's Term Auction Facility $200 billion+
Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund $50 billion
Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $144 billion
POSSIBLE TOTAL $1.8 trillion+
NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS PER U.S. CENSUS 105,480,101
POSSIBLE COST PER HOUSEHOLD $17,064+

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.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10057618-38.html

[MrLabGuy]

Originally Posted by AzX5

Bailout type Cost to taxpayers (Source: Reuters)
Financial bailout package approved this week up to or more than $700 billion
Bear Stearns financing $29 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization $200 billion
AIG loan and nationalization $85 billion
Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill $300 billion
Mortgage community grants $4 billion
JPMorgan Chase repayments $87 billion
Loans to banks via Fed's Term Auction Facility $200 billion+
Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund $50 billion
Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $144 billion
POSSIBLE TOTAL $1.8 trillion+
NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS PER U.S. CENSUS 105,480,101
POSSIBLE COST PER HOUSEHOLD $17,064+

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.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10057618-38.html

Even more sad...Just because we bailed out the banks does not mean we are even close to being out of the woods. We need to turn around the housing market which means the banks need to keep giving loans. Problem is they can't go back to Sub-Primes and that is exactly what was fueling the housing boom.

I'm betting the banks are still going to pull back even with the extra 700 Billion. Nothing in that bill requires banks to give Americans a break even though we Americans saved their azzes.

[motordavid]

AzX5,
Pretty good list of "monies" there...hard to fathom for even
the noveau-riche, or maybe now, the noveau-almost middle class.

Add in current "publicy held debt", held by both domestic
and many offshore bond holders of ~$5 and 1/2 Trillion, add
in the interest on that and on most of the above in your list, add
in the nearly $100 Billion we will spend in Iraq next year, etc.

It is a generation or two worth of "monies" to be whittled down;
it will never be paid off. And, that assumes a couple, three
more shoes don't drop: California, other states, the next
big company we hafta save, more terrorist crap, and on and on and...
BR,mD

[JCL]

Originally Posted by statdoc

OK, settle down people. The so-called "bloated with pork" statement, provided by the media and repeated by everyone else, is not completely accurate.

Civics lesson: All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, and then be sent to the Senate. Anyone remember that from high school? When the US House rejected the bailout bill last week, the Senate could not legally pass it. So, what the Senate did was modify it slightly (to satisfy House members' original complaints), and pass it. To legally do anything with it, they then attached it to a routine annual tax/spending bill that had ALREADY been passed by the House. By attaching it to the House bill, they could then legally send the whole thing back to the House for the House to vote on the Senate's version, and get the whole thing approved.

All the stuff about wooden arrows, etc had already been voted on and approved a month ago, without anybody complaining. It was just awaiting routine approval by the Senate. It was a Constitutionally-required parliamentary maneuver to attach this bailout bill to the House's bill, just so the Senate could approve it and break the logjam on the Capitol.

Thanks for that, it's interesting, and counteracts some of the partisan comments.

[MrLabGuy]

Originally Posted by statdoc

OK, settle down people. The so-called "bloated with pork" statement, provided by the media and repeated by everyone else, is not completely accurate.

Civics lesson: All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, and then be sent to the Senate. Anyone remember that from high school? When the US House rejected the bailout bill last week, the Senate could not legally pass it. So, what the Senate did was modify it slightly (to satisfy House members' original complaints), and pass it. To legally do anything with it, they then attached it to a routine annual tax/spending bill that had ALREADY been passed by the House. By attaching it to the House bill, they could then legally send the whole thing back to the House for the House to vote on the Senate's version, and get the whole thing approved.

All the stuff about wooden arrows, etc had already been voted on and approved a month ago, without anybody complaining. It was just awaiting routine approval by the Senate. It was a Constitutionally-required parliamentary maneuver to attach this bailout bill to the House's bill, just so the Senate could approve it and break the logjam on the Capitol.

Show me a source which confirms these pork barrel projects were part of a bill voted on a couple of months ago. I could not find any references to that exact bill which was attached to this bailout bill you are referring to in your post.

I found many news outlet sources which point to the contrary. For example:

there was an earmark that will allow racetrack owners to depreciate their facilities over seven years, saving them about $100 million. The earmark was part of a bill backed by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) two years ago.

There were several other reference which pointed to Senators placing past proposals to this new bailout bill in an attempt to get them passed.

[motordavid]

Originally Posted by MrLabGuy

Show me a source which confirms these pork barrel projects were part of a bill voted on a couple of months ago. I could not find any references to that exact bill which was attached to this bailout bill you are referring to in your post. ...

LabGuy, you have to read something other than FoxNews,

StatDoc is correct; many of the tax deals/incentives were stuff that
had been percolating for months, mostly in the Senate, and were tossed
into the BOBill to appease many of the House Repubs, and some of the
less than genius Dems.

And, as StatDoc mentioned, it is done all the time...that's one of my beefs: a "bill" should
be 3 pages or less, understandable by WalMartNation and contain nothing but verbage on
that issue/item. In the mean time, a Line Item Veto would help, too.

NEway, FYI, Fwiw, C&P'd from the WashPost:
"The House of Representatives yesterday approved $107 billion in tax breaks for businesses and consumers as part of a sweeping financial rescue package designed to stave the credit crisis.

Saddled onto the 450-page bill is a provision to shield as many as 25 million Americans from the alternative minimum tax and $18 billion in tax credit extensions for wind and solar energy production.

Yet to appease lawmakers and make the bill more attractive, several more prosaic tax provisions are included, according to a government budgetary watchdog group.

NASCAR will be able to write off racetrack costs over 7 years and manufacturers of wooden arrows for children will be shielded from an excise tax applied to other shafts. The NASCAR provision was introduced by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who voted in favor of the bill.

The bailout package also provides tax rebates on rum imported from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and tax credits for economic development on the island of American Samoa.

"In the midst of a debate over a historic bailout package, Senate pulled out an old bag of tricks: piling billions of dollars of unrelated legislative provisions into the package and daring the House to reject the bailout again," said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

"Many of these provisions are tax extenders that have been waiting in the wings for months, hoping for a legislative train to leave the station."

The bill passed the House yesterday 263 to 171. It was a last-ditch effort of sorts for proponents of renewable energy to get tax provisions extended before they were set to expire by the end of the year. Those extensions, estimated at $18 billion, had repeatedly failed to pass legislative muster in both the Senate and House over the past year.

The tax breaks in the legislation total $149 billion over 10 years, and are offset by $42 billion in tax increases. The hikes include a new levy on hedge-fund managers who avoid taxes by transferring income offshore, a provision that would raise $25 billion over 10 years.


...The provisions include an eight-year extension of an estimated $1.9 billion in tax credits on solar equipment purchases by solar energy producers. Wind, geothermal and biomass producers would also receive about $5.8 billion in tax credit extensions.

...For homeowners, the bill removes the current $2,000 tax credit cap for residential projects, allowing those who convert to solar electricity to reduce their taxes by up to 30 percent of the project's cost. Residents will also get tax credits for energy-efficient appliances.

Buyers of plug-in electric cars would get tax credits of $2,500 to $7,500. Electric vehicle recharging stations, meanwhile, would get a one-year extension on $30,000 in tax credits or up to 30 percent of their costs.

Yet the bill has also drawn criticism from environmental groups for its inclusion of $900 million in tax credit extension to refineries using tar sands or coals-to-liquids technology." ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...opnews&sub=new

[MrLabGuy]

Originally Posted by motordavid

LabGuy, you have to read something other than FoxNews,

StatDoc is correct; many of the tax deals/incentives were stuff that
had been percolating for months, mostly in the Senate, and were tossed
into the BOBill to appease many of the House Repubs, and some of the
less than genius Dems.

LOL...I'm a news junkie and I not only watch Fox but I also catch MSNBC (for a laugh) and I watch a lot of CNN because it is broadcast by my cable provider (Comcast) in High Definition.

As for the PORK...Yeah I know that it is added at the last minute all the time which is why it was added in this bill. StatDoc made it sound as if these pork projects were already voted on and "passed" by the House and then attached to the bailout bill in order to conform to lawmaker rules.

That is not what is being reported from what I can find on-line from ANY news source.