It's bad enough that things got so bad we needed a $700 Billion government intervention in the markets... but the House's failure to approve the Rescue measure on Monday, instead delaying until Friday ended up costing $110 billion ($27.5 billion/day).
That's Not Change You Can Believe In
I spent some time this morning with the Joint Committee on Taxation score of the "tax extenders" portion of the bailout bill. The rough cost of the additions, which your children and grandchildren will pay, is $110 billion through 2018. This includes an Alternative Minimum Tax patch, and lots of tax subsidies for renewable energy. Some other highlights:
• $2 million excise tax exemption on "certain wooden arrows designed for use by children."
• $49 million in tax breaks for people (in Alaska, mostly) receiving compensation from the litigation over the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
• $100 million in tax breaks for "certain motorsports racing track facilities."
• $179 million in tax incentives for "investment in the District of Columbia."
• $49 million for a charitable deduction for corporations who donate books to libraries.
• $33 million for an economic development credit in American Samoa.
• $61 million in added credits for "steel industry fuel" also known as liquefied coal waste sludge.
• $397 million for the "domestic production activities deduction" for film production
• $81 million to extend and modify treatment of "certain film and television productions."
So let's see. We were 12 votes shy on Monday, so that's approximately $9.16 Billion of "Sweeteners" per necessary vote, or if you consider that today's vote passed with an extra 58 votes (263-171 Friday compared to 205-229 on Monday), that comes to $1.9 Billion/vote.
Our government is broken.
