Critics say bailout bill is stuffed with billions in pork

omg this is bad that they passed it

One would think that those compiling and voting on the bailout bill would have more concern over focusing strictly on ways to address the current economic crisis that we are in. Even though earmarks are a way it seems to pass bills, the positive impact in the publics eye of not adding earmarks to this particular bill could have been great. It seems that those involved were not concerned enough with finding a solution on a whole. Plus, the earmarks in essence are increasing government spending which is not what this bill is about!

As John McCain promised:  are we going to know who put this pork into the bill - I want to see them made famous.  

I am outraged that the bailout bill contained so much outlandish pork. The practice of pork barrel politics has got to be stopped. It is a form of congressional extortion used to advance legislation. The only way to stop it is for the Press to identify these people and call them to account.  Let them understand that the American people are fed up and will vote accordingly. Stand up for clean legislation and more transparent government. Obama '08.

Pork to the PEOPLE: 700 billion dollar bail out?? Why not give every person in America 2 millon dollars That would be about 620 millon dollars less then the Pork Bill. Then let the spending strat. All the Goverment has to do is lock all prices in and the party is on

Who specifically added these items to the bill?

You know, not all of the sweeteners were bad necessarily.  For instance, Mental health and substance abuse parity, which has been a large issue of social welfare for a number of years.  Now substance abuse and mental health treatment will be covered by insurance.

let the banks fail.  

How does the regular American find out EXACTLY WHO put the pork in the bill?  

If you adhere to your "watch dog" thinking, you'll do me and other Democrats an injustice by not exposing the authors of those pork bill. I've never witnessed such arrogance and disregard for taxpayers in my life. With all the uproar re: this volatile bailout issue, imagine having the nerve to stuff it even further in their typical sneaky manner? I'm embarrassed to be an American.

as a small business owner who works in excess of 70 hours each and every week, iam apalled at the amount of pork that has been added to this bail out bill, race track owners, importers of rum from p/r, wooden arrows, how much of this our we the tax payers going to put up with, will some one please tell the public who added all of this pork so they can be voted out of office, politicians are just like little children, they will do what they want until they get caught and punished by theyre parents, or in this case the public.

omg, vote them all out!!!!

Until the people of this country wake up and first Vote then Demonstrate, our elected officials will continue to enslave the people of this country for thier own bidding.
Every Congress man and senator should be voted out after 10 years or over the age of 60.  

I guess the Republicans wouldn't vote AYE until it was filled with tax breaks for corporations. Hmmm.

OK media (NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox) you have read the comments now go to work.  Where is the Washington Post and the New York Times when it comes to exposing the porkers?  It may be necessary to pass a constitutional amendement to does not permit additions to any bill this is not directrectly related to the bill to stop this madness.

THE MORONS LEFT TOWN BEFORE PASSING THE PART OF THE BILLS THAT TOOK CARE OF MIDDLE CLASS AMERICA.....WHAT DID WE GET FOR OUR 700B?

1. We had 700B of our hard earned tax dollars taken from our pockets and given to Wall St

2. They added Pork on the Bill wasting more of our tax dollars

3. GUESS WHAT!!!!! They left town before passing the part of the bill that will help middle class America...can you believe it. They left town and forgot us after all that B.S. talk about this bill taking care of middle class America. Gee...I wonder if they will come back to work to take care of Main St -- yea right!

4. The work ethic of congress stinks. They act like they work hard when they have to put in extra hours for a few weeks that most middle class Americans do 365 days a week just to survive. These lazy bums don't work hard...they don't know what hard work is.

5. At this stage, I don't care who voted yes or no for this bill. They are all bums and should be thrown in jail for violating our trust.... I'm still in shock...they left town without passing the part of the bailout bill that took care of Middle Class needs, yet, they allowed the Pork and was sure to take care of Wall St before leaving town. Business as usual for the bums in Congress...take care of special interest groups, lobbyists and the wealthy. What the terrorists can't accomplish in America, Congress will.

How the hell can any American trust these morons to take care of Main St....NO MORE!

Don't let these morons be re-elected America.

What really annoys me about this is McCain this week saying that he will "reduce the price of food by eliminating the subsidies for ethanol and agricultural goods."  Earlier this year he called the $300 billion farm bill a "bloated piece of legislation that will do more harm than good for most farmers and consumers.”  
It took a year for Congress to pass the five year farm bill - the majority of which ($240 billion) goes to food assistance (food stamps, school lunch, etc) food safety, inspection programs, national forest programs and conservation.  Only $35 billion actually goes to agriculture - with 2/3rds of that being used for research and market promotion efforts.  
Our farm programs have helped to ensure that America has the safest, most affordable and most abundant food supply in the world.
Yet McCain supported a bill that will cost twice as much as the farm bill in half the time that was hastily conceived and amounts to subsidizing the financial markets by the government buying up bad mortgages - not to mention that it is "bloated" with pork.  
Makes it hard for a Republican to vote for him.

It is TIME to get the names of EACH and EVERY pol who voted for this pork-laden bill and vote them OUT if they are up for re-election.  This is no longer OUR government if our so-called representatives are NOT LISTENING to us, aka 'We, the People.'  Vote them out.  I'm voting against Gordon Smith, who is running for re-election in Oregon.

DO IT or don't complain.

And here is a depressing thought.  Both "change"candidates voted to pass this through the senate.  Nothing changes.  We are living through the end days of what was the most glorious nation to ever exist, yet we apathetically sit and do nothing.

straight up...this gives companies the capital to make further investment in derivative markets. it's not like they plan to go out and build a factory and produce something. they'll still be trading debt, your debts, only with the fed acting as a partner

If mental health and substance abuse is such a worthy program, why couldn't it get passed on its own merits?
I am sure a lot of western rural communities feel the restoration of recently deleted funding to replace lost timber revenues is an equally worthy expenditure (probably Sen Murray, Dem-WA), but why here?
Nobody will throw these people out -- they are buying votes with this money rather than creating enough anger to cost them an election.

Interesting how an outraged public and many expert, non-partisan academics (Nobel Prize winning Jos. Steiglitz, etc.)as well as successful bizmen (billionare Mark Cuban, etc.)thought the plan unnecessary or immoral; and yet the fear-mongering media gave us 8 pro-bailout guests vs. every one against it (my informal surf & track). Excuse me - late flash - "Wall St. Bailout" to be repackaged and sold to Americans as the "Rescue Plan"... Must wonder how the media conglomerates & "Bi-partisan" Houses benefited from the "God Bless America, Victory For Main Street - Rescue Plan"...Hey-where's your Flag Pin?

FYI, Every bill passed by the Congress has this type of additional spending attached.  I know of one Senator from AZ that has tried for years to control it and another from ILL that says he can.  At the end of the day selfishness and greed win out in Congress, just like on Wall Street.

If you want to get into the knitting I recommend reading the following House & Senate websites:

http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/legvotes.html

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/a_three_sections_with_teasers/votes.htm

In an ideal world...

Dear Congress,

I regret to inform you that your legislation, bill number ___________ has been vetoed for the following reason(s): (check all that apply)

____ It violates section(s) ________ of the Constitution.
____ It violates the ________ amendment(s) of the Bill of Rights
____ It contains unfunded mandates.
____ It violates PayGo. Spending money you do not have does not wash!
____ It fails to allocate $1 toward paying off the National Debt for every $1 spent on the topic of legislation.
____ It contains earmarks.
____ The length of the bill exceeds 20 pages, so most of you probably didn't read it before voting for it..
____ It contains fancy language or legaleze that would confuse a 8th grader.
____ It contains corporate welfare.
____ It contains sole source contracts.
____ It was written by lobbyists.
____ It benefits certain businesses in an industry at the expense of others in that industry or the public.
____ It modifies a word or phrase in a previous law. If you want to modify a law, you must review it's effects to date, abolish it and pass a new law as a replacement for it.
____ It increases taxes
____ It increases the size and scope of the federal government.
____ It perpetrates extortion on the state governments. Examples would be withholding funds if certain (generally unfunded) mandates are not adopted.
____ It encourages or extends dependence by state governments on the federal government.
____ The title of the bill is diametrically opposite or deceptive to the actual effect the legislation will have. The classic example would be the “Patriot Act”(sic).
____ The author, sponsor or co-sponsors have previously held a executive position(s) in an industry the legislation effects.
____ Over 2% of your constituents have contacted your offices objecting to the bill – on average.
____ You have failed to review and abolish two obsolete laws in order to make room for a new law.
____ You failed to review and abolish the laws the people found most objectionable, as determined by petition in order to make room for this new law.
____ It spends a penny of the so called “surplus” of the “deficit” - that is money left over from collecting taxes that is not paid out as interest on the national debt. I expect your usual tactics of changing the language to call this “deficit” to something else – whatever you call it – the rules apply! - NO MORE GAMES! This is not an excuse for a spending orgy – like in past years. You will live within your budget and a return here is not an excuse for a spending orgy.
____ Other (explain) _______________________________________________________________

As an aside, I can not tell you how delighted I am that due to the poor votes by roughly half of The House on the recent so called “bailout” that was opposed by 80% of the public – many of you will be getting pink slips come November. A country run by waitresses, cops and small business owners has a much better chance of recovering than one run by lawyers and multi-millionaires/billionaires, and former corporate CEO's. You are the people that created these problems and we would be much better off without you. When considering your previous votes on things like the Patriot act, the Iraq war, The Military Commissions Act and the FISA laws – hopefully most of you will get FIRED!

Thank you,

The United States President

The mental health and susbstance abuse parity amendment to the bailout is a miracle. Two of our sons have chronic, disabling schizo-affective disordera cross between depression and schizophrenia.

Work insurance covered 90% for heart treatment, but only 50% for medications and Doctor visits that keep them stable.

God bless Sen Domineci about to retire after years figthing for equal treatment.God bless the senators and congressmen who put this add on to the Bailout bill.

This is in response to the person that said give every American 2 million dollars and it would be less than the bailout.  $2,000,000 x 320,000,000 Americans= $640,000,000,000,000,000.  Just a wee bit more than what you are thinking.  If we gave the $700 billion to Americans over the age of 18 estimated at 200,000,000 people we would $3500 each.  Stimulating, yes.  Solves the problem, no.

Let the banks fail and the bank executives who caused the mess apply for jobs at the new banks.  Instead they are being hired by the Treasury Department to give taxpayers money back to their old banks. Meanwhile the average workers wage keeps falling and their jobs sent overseas.

I am tired of hearing, "that's how Washington works"!  Then shame on us for letting it happen.  This has got to stop.  I want to see those responsible nailed to the proverbial cross.  If the politicians ever had a chance to redeem theirselves in the eyes of the American public, this would have been the time.  But yet again,  they showed what truly matters to them...and it's NOT our well-being.

The bad part of this PORK is that a lot of it is a re-instatement of old pork that we voters had not noticed before.  Maybe we shouldn't trust our present Congress to do what they should be doing anymore and vote them all out (Democrats, Republican, & Independents) in the next elections. YES, WE NEED CHANGE IN WASHINGTON, ESPECIALLY IN CONGRESS.

Pork in any bill is ridiculous, but adding pork to this bill is absolutely unconscionable. We need to elect individuals who have a proven track record of opposing this type of nonsense and who are not afraid to be a thorn in the side of even those in their own party if that's what it takes to stand up for Mr. and Mrs. Six-Pack.

Please, how do we find out who put the pork
in this bill at a time like this?????

At a time when such crisis is happening there are politician, in whose hands lies the future of America, are doing such heinious acts. This is outright butchery of the faith of American people in our political leaders.

Every Nevada Senator and Representative that voted for this bailout will not get my vote when it comes time to be reelected.  Everyone should vote them all out of office; time to clean house!

My congressional rep. is Zack Space of Ohio. About the only positive thing that I can say about him is that he is a good tour guide for the school children on their yearly trip to Washington. The founding fathers of our once great country would be rolling in their graves if the could see what the self serving politicians have done to their beloved America!!

We know that 'pork' is only 18 billion of a 14Trillion Dollar US Budget, yet, i must ask,
"How many want the 'already on-board' public servants who work as Tax-Court-Lawyers to go through the "Code" and actually design an equitable "Tax-System?"

When the bill was voted down in the first instance I was happy that some one was really sensible to the public out cry.  All it required to reverse their decision was to get more millions for their lobbyists.

Long live democracy

FYI:

The Senators from Oregon appear to be the sponsors of considerable "pork" projects:

Sec. 503  Oregon Senators sponsored a bill that by my calculations nets a single company, the  Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon a tax exemption of $200,000.00 per year for ten years.
(total worth = $2,000,000.00)

Sec 301 Research Credit  
The report doesn't state who sponsored this, but
Microsoft and Boeing are both headquartered in Washington State. Estimated worth = 19 Billion

Sec. 601 Secure Rural Schools:
Sponsored by Senators from Oregon (Defazio & Wyden) and Idaho ( Craig & Sali )
Estimated worth = 3.3 Billion

Sec. 201  Deduction for State & Local Taxes
Beneficiaries:  States of Texas, Nevada, Florida,
Washington, and Wyoming.
Estimated worth = 3.3 Billion over 2 years


Sec. 502  Film and Television productions:
Sponsored by Diane Watson of California
Estimated worth: 478 Million over 10 years

The Northwestern states seem to have a major chunk of the "pork" added to the bailout. Perhaps their connections to the companies benefitting from the tax exemptions should be investigated.

The banking industry needs total overhaul.  ARM's killed housing and financial markets in the 80's and again 20 yrs later.  ARM's need to be banned.  Credit interest of +20% was illegal in the 60's as shylock interest. Raising your Credit card int rate because you are 3 days late on your utility bill should be illegal.  The fed allowed banks to not have to set aside the usual reserves and on and on.  Now to add salt in the wound our "representatives???" tack on billions in pork--they should be ashamed and we need to fire those that added the pork and allowed the banking industry to put our nation in this financial jeopardy.

not all of it is "pork". Many of these "notorious" items have little impact, are spending (budget) items that would otherwise be included, or a fully and independently justified!

i.e. Mental health coverage provisions, alternative fuel credits and even credits for business that support bicycle commuting.

And, if a bank can get billions of bailout dollars, then a bow and arrow manufacturer can get a 200,000 tax exemption *20,000/year over 10 years
This is projected and may not necessarily come to pass, as those wooden arrows may be replaced by wooden arrows imported from China

As Americans in congress how can these idiots get away with this. If this is how they want to spend our money we need to go back to the old west days and hang em' for theft.

My fellow Americans:

We have major problems with our Reps NOT listening to what we want. Democrat, Republican; there are a few who deserve to be in congress. Power corrupts is the sad truth. You have to be a strong individual to actually let the people speak and then carry out their/our wishes.

They must think we're all STUPID and that we don't know how to handle our money. I know one thing, and that is I won't borrow money if #1 I have outstanding debt already, #2 I can't afford the payments and #3 If it gives control to others (who don't like America to begin with!).

Representatives flat out ignored phone calls and emails asking NOT to pass this...THEFT. Because that's what it is. They are using OUR money without our permission. Now granted there are like others have said "decent things contained in the pork," but that is not told to us what is pork and what isn't.

We are told $700B bailout plan to help clean up stupid mistakes of bank execs and financially uneducated homebuyers. NOTHING about the extra $150B in "pork barrell" spending!

Folks....$100,000 is a LOT of money to this ol' boy, let alone 150 billion. I don't know what can be done, be we need to do something, and Quick!

You know what's scary now? It's not working like they thought it would! Ooops?

The fact that ANY pork, or earmarks, was included in this bill is a travesty. Bush, Pelosi, Reid - VERY guilty of selling their responsibilities to "Lead" America. The pathetic thing is that it appears they'll get away with it since no one seems to exist that has the power to step in and put a stop to it. We're left with an electorate that still votes for "incumbent" and a Congress that votes, when it does at all, for the highest bidder.

The financial crisis was handled in such a way to give McCain an opportunity to pull his campaign out of the rubbish bin. That strategy wasn't working, Nancy Pelosi shot off her mouth, and the next thing you know it gets moved to a different group of politicians. The pork added to the bailout bill is just a ploy by the Republicans to make it appear as if the Dems are at fault. That attempt hasn't stemmed the bleeding of the McCainn campaign either, so they've gone back to Rev Wright and Bill Ayers.

To Diana in Cape Coral, Fla,

Here is a rule of thumb that I use to see who is doing what, and it's pretty simple. If the Republicans were loading it up with pork, then the AP, CNN, and the New York times would be screaming their names out, and every Saint Obama representative would be shouting it out everywhere. But when the Democrats do it, the same media want to appear as though they care and so they say,"Oh, look at the pork" and then don't name names. If you look at the top ten, two were republicans and the rest democrats, and one of the Republicans was asked to leave the party but didn't, Larry (I have a wide stance) Craig. So if you want to know who won the debates the press is silent if a republican won, and if a democrat is at fault on an issue, you'll hardly hear a peep. They do this so the Democrats will have time to spin so that they look saintly. Just like Pelosi did on the first time bailout vote. Clinton put CRA in 1999, Democrats voted against the regulation in 2004 and 2005, and Dodd and Frank  were in charge of the oversight committee for at least two years, and at least long enough for Dodd and Obama to rake in the highest amount of contributions from Fannie and Freddie (directly, not through a lobbyist). If you don't believe me, look up the films and archived text at who really blocked Fannie and Freddie regulation. Hint: One of them was Barny (I was watching freddie's fanny) Frank. Good luck, and if the average liberal has about a 99% increase in IQ, that will bring them to low double digits but enough for Saint Obama to be in real trouble because his base will really know who to vote for, and it won't be him. But based upon what I see and hear, there's no immediate danger of that. Single-digit IQs appear to be here for some time, and it could mean taxes up the ying yang and so much worse.

It appears that more democrats pushed for pork-shame on them.  I will vote for McCain/Palin. The fact that the bill was so important and these greedy democrats still could not help themselves but still felt a need to screw the American taxpayers. It is not whether some of these other issues are important-many are to at least a few people.  They just shouldn't have been pushed through on this bill. Also-why didn't these politicians deal with these things earlier.  our democrat controlled congress hasn't gotten anything of substance done since they took over control.  hmmm-more of the same coming if Obama wins....I gave up on the democrats after seeing how they blew their perfect opportunity to improve my life, according to the many promises made in the last election round....

Good people of America, you are making a grave mistake with regard to the arrows.

The arrows in question are actually arrow shafts for children's archery sets, like those used in school archery programs or those you might find at a summer camp.

The "pork" as you call it, is an exemption from a WEAPONS tax imposed as result of 9-11.

These childrens arrows, by being taxed as weapons, made it impossible for schools to buy, or the company, Rose City ', to survive as a maker arrow shafts.

This is not pork. This merely corrects a mistake made earlier with poor legislation.

Tam... this "democratic congress" has only been in power for a short time... when Republicans had it for ten of the past twelve years... and of course we had republicans in the executive branch for the last eight.  Its ridiculous to sit there and say "SEE, they haven't done anything!"  this ship has been sinking for a LONG time... no one could bail it out in 2yrs...

To Tommy,

It's not the arrow pork it's the fact that we are creating a bail out package and they include something that shouldn't even be discussed at this time.

Can you say, "REVOLUTION?"