UPDATE: To Read The Latest News On The Status Of The Bailout And The Market CLICK HERE
And it’s a crock of crap.
The bill has now been expanded to 451 pages, from the House version of 110, which was expanded from the original 2 pages submitted.
God, Congress has a way of adding bunches of irrelevant crap and window dressing…
So, basically, the Senate Bill is exactly the same as the House Bill… with all the same hinkey provisions for “NOT Acorn” groups to “help” the poor, but it has basically added an energy bill and a tax bill on the back of it.
The “Mark to Market” rule is still there, which leads to total crap accounting practices. Basically this rule says that you have to claim all the assets you have in your accounting based upon the current market value of those assets in a normal transaction in the market today (or at the time of the accounting)… fair, right?
Yeah, except for the exception, which says that in the case of an asset being in a sector that is experiencing a “firesale” that any of these assets that you hold don’t have to be valued at the current market, but rather what the companies internal measures of the value are… basically, if you have a mortgage security on your books, you get to make up a number and use that as the value in your accounting.
WTF???
Anyway, the energy bill is strangely irrelevant to the topic at hand but has some ok stuff… here is an exerpt from the table of contents to the energy section…
Sec. 101. Renewable energy credit.
Sec. 102. Production credit for electricity produced from marine renewables.
Sec. 103. Energy credit.
Sec. 104. Energy credit for small wind property.
Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
Sec. 106. Credit for residential energy efficient property.
Sec. 107. New clean renewable energy bonds.
Sec. 108. Credit for steel industry fuel.
Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment credit.
Sec. 112. Expansion and modification of coal gasification investment credit.
Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
Sec. 117. Carbon audit of the tax code….
Blah, blah, blah, you get the point.
Some good stuff in there, but I don’t know why this is in the Mtg Bailout Bill, it doesn’t really seem germane to the discussion, but… ok, i guess.
Then there is some weird temporary and irrelevant FDIC provision where the increase coverage from 100k to 250k… ok… but it doesn’t really give the money to the FDIC, just the authorization to borrow it from the Treasury if needed.
.
But here is where we get to the good part… the tax bill and all the nifty little earmarks…
First, my personal favorite…
SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by redesignating subparagraph (B) as sub301 paragraph (C) and by inserting after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph:
‘‘(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROW SHAFTS.—Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold separately or incorporated as part of a finished or unfinished product) of a type used in the manufacture of any arrow which after its assembly—
‘‘(i) measures 5⁄16 of an inch or less in diameter, and
‘‘(ii) is not suitable for use with a bow described in paragraph (1)(A).’’.(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to shafts first sold after the date of enactment of this Act.
This is a friggin joke right? We are dealing with what is perhaps the most severe economic crisis our nation has ever faced and someone is worried about the excise tax on wooden arrows (as in Bow And Arrow) used by kids? Seriously?
Then there are earmarks and tax breaks for the
-Hollywood Producers and Filmmakers,
-Rum Producers,
-Racetracks
You know… because that what America needs more of… alcoholics watching movies about motocross while sipping a fruity drink that has a paper umbrella in it.
Seriously… can we get a clean bill without all the earmarks please?
How about an actual energy bill, a tax bill, a mtg bailout bill, and a bow/arrow bill instead…
not a nonprofitenergytaxarrowbailout bill.
.
No wonder DC is all screwed up. I am starting to buy into how big of a problem pork is more and more every day.
.
.
Update: I cant believe they actually passed this boat of crap… with all the christmas presents it contains.
Oh, and I hear tell that Feinstein recieved 95,000 emails regarding the bill, 85,000 of which asked her not to vote for the bill…. She voted for it anyway.
Nice.
UPDATE: For a much more detailed account of what is in the bill, CLICK HERE
Update: Hot Air has the full bill and some additional information
Filed under: General Politics, Mortgage Bailout | Tagged: Bailout, Bill, pork, Senate
You know, I have to tell you, I really enjoy this blog and the insight from everyone who participates. I find it to be refreshing and very informative. I wish there were more blogs like it. Anyway, I felt it was about time I posted, Ive spent most of my time here just lurking and reading, but today for some reason I just felt compelled to say this.
Thanks for plowing through this…I wish McCain would vote against it…
I’ve got an update to your debate post below…
Gwen Ifill’s Impeccable Journalistic Credentials Will be Tested on This Specific Question….
http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/gwen-ifills-impeccable-journalistic-credentials-will-be-tested-on-this-specific-question/
It’s the first step toward socialism.
Crime of the century,
Last century it was the institution of the Fed (a private bank) and allowing them to create money out of thin air (printing dollars without any value backingit) which got sold to the government. now that that has caught up (all the gold that used to back up the dollar is sold off long ago) we get taxpayers (yeah, you and me, not banks or business or politicians) to fill the banks coffers so the corruption game and fake asset games can continue.
Soon it’ll all be too late people.
Does it have the bit in it about banks no longer needing to maintain any reserves? Often when they bloat the crap out of these bills its to hide the real problems with them…
Until the people of the U.S. are ready and willing to actually eliminate the Democrat, Republican, and Independent parties altogether by voting every last one of them out of ANY public office they might hold, from the City Council to the House to the Senate… NOTHING will get better. Nothing will change… EVER. You MUST vote every single last one of them out of office altogether and start clean. Otherwise, the multinational corporate fascists and banking elite will continue to dominate our political process until you own nothing, you’ll have nothing and you’ll be destitute. They won’t STOP, until they have literally legislated themselves into having the right to come into your home and determine what you owe, based on some predicate on some movement of some act of some executive order and tax… they won’t stop until you’ve literally got CHAINS around your necks. It’s their NATURE… it’s nothing personal, it’s simply business… and CONTROL. But by eliminating each member of these fascist sympathetic and corporately controlled parties (DEM/REP/IND)… you can actually change the system by eliminating LOBBYING and CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS by a national referendum. Look… I believe that we SHOULD be a capitalist country, but with minor socialist undertones. By RE-REGULATING banking, commodities, mortgages, and mass communications with stipulations that they can NEVER be deregulated again, nationalizing our oil industry, and eliminating the actual privatization of public services and resources, we can change things. By compelling mass media to give equal time to each political candidate free of charge in elections, and offering a generous tax break to offset costs and maintain profitability, things can change. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, the American people need to be politically intelligent and responsible. A CRITERIA needs to be met by the voting population, and they need to be MORE INVOLVED. Legislations shouldn’t even be able to hit the floor in the house or senate, until it’s been voted upon by national referendum to begin with. These criminal racketeers in our congress who are members of the three big parties DEM/REP/IND, are attacking the American people with LEGISLATION, and it’s partially the American people’s fault, because they don’t keep an eye on what’s happening on the Hill. We need a system in
ooops,… We need a system in which the people ALL get word on what legislation is being proposed, so that the people have an opportunity to actually be HEARD before a vote as to whether something should be a low or not, is to even take place. And don’t tell me C-SPAN either. NO… I mean some kind of daily site that POPS UP on your damn computer, as a citizen with a voter registration card. We as Americans need to be more politically responsible.
Thanks for taking the time to read my rant.
[...] Texas Hill Country has an excellent write up. They also let us know that an excise tax exemption has been included for a children’s toy, a wooden arrow! PHEW! Aren’t you relieved about that? We simply could not allow that to be left out. A blog called Hot Air has a good write up. [...]
Thing about the 503 exemption of ‘excise’ tax for arrows is psy-op symbolic chuckle. It was put in to let us know –they are giving us the shaft.
[...] Posts Ok, So I Just Read The Senate Version Of The Bailout Bill…The Dems Earmark The Bailout Bill!?!?!? For ACORN?!?!?! Who Are Franklin Raines, Tim Howard and Jim [...]
Bailing out zionist bankers, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, Wikipedia and Facebook.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing at Gitmo.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting illegal wars without declaration.
Impeach them all (both parties) and save this great country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov’t and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000083883
Is there anyway to have a massive RECALL for every Senator that voted for this pile of RUBBISH?
Have any of the posters here found that the bill is riding as an amendment to a house bill (HR 3007)?
There is authorization to refer to the ‘bailout’ as another name for the original bill.
www americanfreepress net worth your time!
You read it? Got to respect that. You now have more idea of what was in it than most of the people who voted on it.
Since the Constitution requires that spending bills originate in the House and this concoction was rigged in the Senate, they attached the whole thing to the wooden arrows legislation to circumvent the Constitution and make the bill “legal”,
I agree with this guy..we need a place to come together organize speak as one, be our own lobbyist.
When senator shelby was chastizing the Senate befoore the vote he sad the was in violation of section 6 amendment 10 of the constitution..basicly what that means congress has no authority to use tax dollars this way, the people have the last say in it.
so we bitch..but do we do sumthin about it?
ohio you can vote early untill oct 6th..I wrote in Ron Paul and voted for anybody that was not REp or DEM where there was a choice and where there was no choice i left it blank.
We need to figure a way to fight this bill if only to draw a line in the sand. repeal it , impeach bush he is reqiured to protect the constituion. he won’t get bennis if he is impeached .
[...] Posted on September 26, 2008 by Texas Hill Country UPDATE: You should see the Senate version of the bill… I just got done reading it… holy [...]