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

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

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

The Senate hopes to revive Treasury’s $700 billion financial rescue plan Wednesday night by packaging it together with more than $100 billion in popular tax breaks as well as aid to rural schools important to House Republicans.

And tucked away in the tax provisions is a landmark health care provision demanding that insurance companies provide coverage for mental health treatment—such as hospitalization—on parity with physical illnesses.

With each permutation, the bill has steadily grown in size. Treasury’s initial plan was about three pages long. The House version, which failed, stretched to 110. The Senate substitute now runs over 450 pages.

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

 

[maxiep]

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

 

[Nikolokolus]

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.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

haha.

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

Is anyone this stupid?

 

[MARIS61]

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.

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

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

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

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

 

[Nikolokolus]

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

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

I rest my case.

 

[bodyman5001]

I rest my case.

I rule in your favor.

 

[Stepping Razor]

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

 

[Jack RamsaysPants]

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.

 

[barfo]

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

But can't you see, SR, that red dagger straight into the beating heart of the budget? All the dollars will flow right out through the wound that the earwigs create, with a giant sucking sound.

barfo

 

[Minstrel]

But can't you see, SR, that red dagger straight into the beating heart of the budget? All the dollars will flow right out through the wound that the earwigs create, with a giant sucking sound.

barfo

It's just a flesh wound...

 

[maxiep]

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.

 

[Nikolokolus]

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.

 

[Stepping Razor]

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.

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

 

[Denny Crane]

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

To a degree you're right, but your chart is meant to deceive.

Half that pie chart is Social Security, another good sized chunk is Medicare, and another good sized chunk is interest on the debt. That red sliver becomes a pretty significant bit of what's left, especially if you consider defense spending is about the only mandated bit of spending by govt. and the big chunk of spending that represents.

There's nothing inherently wrong with earmarks, it's congress' way of directing spending they have already approved to specific projects. What is wrong is that the earmarking process in general is that it is abused to the point the earmarks direct spending on idiotic things that are only good for keeping a congressman in power.

In the case of this $700B authorization, $100B in earmarks (a puny red sliver in a pie chart of $4T in spending) means $600B is really going to what it should be.

 

[Stepping Razor]

To a degree you're right, but your chart is meant to deceive.

Half that pie chart is Social Security, another good sized chunk is Medicare, and another good sized chunk is interest on the debt. That red sliver becomes a pretty significant bit of what's left, especially if you consider defense spending is about the only mandated bit of spending by govt. and the big chunk of spending that represents.

There's nothing inherently wrong with earmarks, it's congress' way of directing spending they have already approved to specific projects. What is wrong is that the earmarking process in general is that it is abused to the point the earmarks direct spending on idiotic things that are only good for keeping a congressman in power.

In the case of this $700B authorization, $100B in earmarks (a puny red sliver in a pie chart of $4T in spending) means $600B is really going to what it should be.

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

 

[Denny Crane]

SR -

On C-SPAN last week, the dems and republicans and administration held a joint press conference, talking about how bipartisan the effort was, and how important it is to pass the bill over the weekend. Pelosi was particularly and uncharacteristically praising the Fed Chairman and Secy. of Treasury blah blah. And the Administration was to submit the legislation by the end of the day.

3 pages. A few days later and no vote, the bill was 40 pages. Another day later, 100 pages. Today it's 450 pages.

It's not all regulations.

 

[julius]

"earmarks" and "pork barrel" are just catch phrases that politicians use because they know that most people won't actually take the time to realize how small the % of the budget is taken up by it. Like funding Nasa, welfare and pork barrel, it's not as big of an issue as they claim it is. It's not tipping us towards bankruptcy.

It's a distraction.

 

[Denny Crane]

Obama says he is going to fund his spending programs, partially on cutting $40B in govt. waste. Good luck on that one.

There's another issue with earmarks that the pie chart is deceptive about. Congress passed a $280B highway bill a couple of years ago. The earmarks may have totaled $1B, but over 4 years. The chart isn't clear about $250M of the earmarks in the budget being carryovers from previous years' spending. That could really add up to a lot more than is being let on.

 

[maxiep]

There were only $18B in earmarks in the entire federal budget.

SR

You know what they say: A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. Earmarks aren't huge as a percentage of the budget, but I would argue the budget is too big. Adding roughly $180.00 annually to each household with earmarks isn't helping matters.

For the record, the only way the budget gets fixed is to attack "entitlements". I put the word in quotes, because in my view I'm only entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would also like to set up an amortization schedule for paying down our current debt.

 

[maxiep]

Would anyone else like to see a law passed that any bill put before the Congress can only have one subject? For example, if you want to pass an earmark to build a bridge in Montana, it has to go in an infrastructure bill. If you're going to offer a bill to cover mental health in insurance, then it has to go under a heathcare bill.

 

[Denny Crane]

You know what they say: A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. Earmarks aren't huge as a percentage of the budget, but I would argue the budget is too big. Adding roughly $180.00 annually to each household with earmarks isn't helping matters.

For the record, the only way the budget gets fixed is to attack "entitlements". I put the word in quotes, because in my view I'm only entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would also like to set up an amortization schedule for paying down our current debt.

There's a saying that congress throws around $billions like they were nickels while the people throw around nickels like they were manhole covers.