The ever expanding bailout bill: let's keep track of the earmarks!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14161.html

What the hell? What does mental health treatment have to do with a wall-street bailout. More washington politics.

 

This process makes me sick. The bottom line is that few of these Congressmen even understand the financial issue.

 

It's all bullshit.

The coup de grace for me is including tax breaks ... in a fucking 700 billion dollar government expenditure! Presumably we'll be borrowing this money from the Chinese, with the ironic twist that this is supposed to unfreeze the credit markets. Better yet, maybe the Treasury will just forgo the borrowing and print themselves up a storm.

Fuck I hate this country sometimes.

 

haha.

Tax breaks on a $700 billion dollar taxpayer-owned bailout!

Is anyone this stupid?

 

It's not "the country" that's doing this.

It is simply the people we put in power through our votes.

 

That are no longer representing the "will" of the people, but making decisions "for the good of the people".

 

I rest my case.

 

I rule in your favor.

 

A certain amount of pork is necessary to getting bills passed, and always has been. Some earmarks pay for useful things; some don't. Obviously I'm opposed to all wasteful spending, but we need to keep the magnitude of the problem in perspective.

Pretending that earmarks are one of the major problems in American life in the year 2008 = bread and circuses politics

SR

 

I saw an anayst tonight say that jus teh fact that the Govenrment has cleared up the mney to buy p the ugliness in the mortgage industry might force other banks who aren't at risk to jump n and buy up many of the troubled properties themselves rather than letting it get into federal hands. Basically it will allow banks to auction off properties with teh US as a bidder. Once banks have cleaned out the risky investments they can move forward.

Some one please correct me if I misinterpreted this.

 

It's just a flesh wound...

 

My issue isn't the $700B going out the door, it's that there aren't guarantees that all revenues from these MBS purchases won't be put toward retiring the debt we're taking out.

My expectation is that we will be adding $700B to our debt, that none of this money will be paid back. And it's not that we won't break even or make a little money off of providing liquidity to the capital markets, it's that our Government will consider this $700B as "found money".

I hope anyone who has kids takes a good look at them and realizes that if we don't retire this debt and start living within our means, we're going to adversely affect their lives.

 

as a social liberal and fiscal conservative, I approve this message.

 

Me too. I just think that the narrow focus on earmarks (not by you maxiep, but by McCain and many others) is a bit of a sideshow.

SR

 

But there aren't $100B in earmarks in the bailout bill. If there were, I'd be right there on the barricades with you guys.

There were only $18B in earmarks in the entire federal budget. Even if we exclude all mandatory spending (entitlements and debt, as you fairly mention above), the total discretionary budget was almost $1.2 trillion. So earmarks accounted for a whopping 1.5% of the discretionary budget. That's still a pretty damn small piece of pie.

Again, I'm not opposed to cleaning up the earmarks process. At the very least, lawmakers who use them should have to publicize them, so legislators who support ridiculous projects can be held accountable by their voters.

But I still think that the issue is basically a sideshow, designed to distract our attention from much more consequential issues.

SR