The Senate bailout plan passed Tuesday night. The bill went from the 113 page house version to 450-something pages! How could the Senators even read 450 pages?
This travesty of a bailout bill epitomizes everything wrong with Washington: Dire problem...Don't fix problem...Load on the pork...Make problem worse.
What is in there? I heard some tax breaks. The oddest was for children's wooden arrow manufacturers. I call that the good part because at least it probably does not amount to much money.
This bill is probably everything Congressman Paul Ryan feared. Certainly the Senate version did not get that month long, or even a week long committee meeting process that Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner wanted. Instead they rushed this pig through.
Michelle Malkin posted 3 pieces Tuesday: Kill the baliout: The vote draws near, and The Senate votes, and Read the Senate bailout bill here, which included the bill's language. They give a flavor of the night and bill. Nays include: Brownback, Bunning, Dole, DeMint, Feingold, Inhofe, Johnson, Sanders,
Sessions, Shelby, to name a few. The votes are recorded at end of Malkin's The Senate votes posting. (I will have to thank Feingold, which does not happen very often.)
Correction: Hold the phone, the following did not make it into the final bill: The bill included an amendment from Senator Sanders for a 10% income tax surcharge on incomes above $500,000, $1million for couples. That will hurt some small business owners.
It goes back to the House Thursday, with a vote possibly on Friday. If you are a praying person, pray the House would have wisdom.
The most important piece, the repeal of the Community Reinvestment Act I think is still sadly lacking. Without that piece of the pie, I think we are doomed to just keep repeating the cycle.
Seems that additional 340-some pages were pure lard.
Sickening.
We have a model that worked pretty well when the government stepped in with the Savings and Loans. Why didn't they do that? What about the Republican model of lending institutions purchasing insurance? Another possibility comes from frugal Dave Ramsey.
Post Script bright spot: "The bill also reaffirms the Securities and Exchange Commission's
authority to suspend so-called mark-to-market accounting, an issue that
gained surprising traction among lawmakers looking for less costly
alternatives to the Bush plan. The practice, adopted in the aftermath
of the savings-and-loan collapse in the 1980s, pegs the value of assets
to their current market price, rather than the price paid for them.'
Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.
Links:
Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin, Vicki Mckenna
