As I warned, not passing last week’s proposal has lead to the monstrosity bailout bill with the Senate’s greasy fingerprints all over it. The new bill passed the House today 263-171. I’ll have to look at the role call when it’s available to make inferences on why certain people switched their vote. My best guess right now is a combination of people afraid to do nothing and people who received goodies in the new 451 page package that we can assume most members of Congress didn’t even entirely read.
This bill added tax incentives for Hollywood, wooden arrow manufacturing, racetracks, rum, and a whole host of other things. It seems odd that last week’s bill, which had removed most of the excess and pork, couldn’t pass, but this version that has something for everyone has passed. It’s also suspicious that while everyone has been panicked over a financial meltdown, the Senate came in this week and had time to add tax breaks to Hollywood and wool fabric producers.
There is also a lot of language about tax incentives for energy, including an investigation of the Internal Revenue Code to determine effective tax policies that affect greenhouse gas emissions. It appears that a cap-and-trade is on the way, though we’ve pretty much expected that anyway.
I’m all for tax breaks, but what do those have to do with this particular bill? This pork-filled behemoth, which is what we’ve come to expect from the Senate, has reduced the bailout to a footnote of the actual legislation.
McCain and Obama both supported the bill in the Senate, McCain reluctantly, and House Democrats are now attributing their change of mind to Obama’s influence (H/T Hot Air). We all know Obama did nothing to help pass this legislation, but the MSM will surely run with this storyline to glorify Obama.
I warned that not passing last week’s bill could lead to more dire circumstances that would put more pressure on Congress to pass even more sweeping legislation, but it appears that all it took to swing the necessary votes was a few sweeteners. If Obama wants to take credit for this piece of sausage, I say let him, so people know of the Democrat spending tidal wave headed their way.
I’m off to San Diego for perhaps the most important examination of my life, but I’ll be back later this weekend to analyze the bill, and the politics that will undoubtedly be behind it.
