Posted by
Bob Wood aka TrekTek on Friday, October 03, 2008 9:27:27 AM
I - like many of you, no doubt - have read and heard a lot of reasons why we MUST have the $700 billion bailout passed immediately, if not sooner. Otherwise, the world as we know it will come to an end. Isn't that pretty much what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said almost two weeks ago?
Well, it's been all of that time, and the world is still here. Which is not to say it will continue. I may not be smart enough to know any better.
But how about our United States Senate? This is supposedly the most important economic "rescue" legislation in our generation (if not in history!), and the Senate just grafts it into a "pork bill" that the Senate had already passed, but the House of Representatives never got around to voting on.
The New York Post has the story:
Stuffed into the 451- page bill are more than $1.7 billion worth of targeted tax breaks to be doled out for a sty full of eyebrow-raising purposes over the next decade...
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.
As if the budget was ever balanced in recent history!
But the Senate could not even give the bailout its own legislation, but had to add it to something else they want to pass. And this is supposed to be the most important legislation of our time?
And should we really be turning over $700 billion to entities overseen by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-IL, and Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA? Aren't they the ones who were in charge when the trouble started?
Once again, it looks like we have the best government money can buy! Sheesh!