A bailout full of waste?
October 6, 2008 by Personal Liberty News Desk
Following the passage of a revised $700 billion bailout package by Congress, some people may be wondering what made certain representatives change their vote.
The answer is the addition of various political "sweeteners," which are also labeled "pork" by critics. Jim Popkin, NBC News senior investigative producer, explained that the small print of the bailout proposal contains billions of dollars of tax breaks that are unlikely to benefit the average taxpayer.
These provisions range from tax breaks for businesses that encourage bicycle use among staff to write-offs for facilities that produce cellulosic biofuel.
Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told MSNBC.com that "this is unfortunately how Washington works."
"Lawmakers piled billions of dollars of pork into the bailout bill and dared detractors to vote against it," he explained, adding that several provisions "benefit narrow interests."
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh worried on a recent radio show that the added pork in the bailout bill would raise its cost in real terms.
"So a $700 billion bailout bill becomes $850 billion in the Senate. This is going to end up being a trillion dollars before it’s all said and done," he said.
Bob, please remind people that America is also shelling out huge bucks to those money-hungry, altruistic bastions of ‘good citizenship’ at ACORN.
Some bailouts may or may not help, and there are bailouts that no sane adult can justify. When Americans finally see the true value of a group like ACORN, they will question the sanity of these half-#%%*#
leaders. All bailouts need to be grouped together. Just because something isn’t called a bailout doesn’t mean that taxpayers aren’t being royally hosed AGAIN in the name of transparent leadership.