WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. News & Comment by Don Hughes. October 6, 2008: The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is 451 pages long.  Unfortunately about 338 of those pages have nothing to do with economic stabilization and everything to do  with buying votes.  For a look at the full version go here: http://tinyurl.com/4utcew.

According to the Senate committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the stated purpose of the legislation is to provide "up to $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury to buy mortgages and other assets that are clogging the balance sheets of financial institutions and making it difficult for working families, small business, and other companies to access credit, which is vital to a strong and stable economy."   For the full summary go here: http://tinyurl.com/4g5uao.

Don't be fooled by the $700 billion price tag.  As of September, the government had already spent $900 billion in rescues and  loans: $300 billion for the FHA to refinance failing mortgage loans; $200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; $200 billion for TAF loans to banks;  $87 billion to JPMorgan Chase for providing financing to bankrupt Lehman Brothers, $85 billion for AIG; $29 billion for JPMorgan Chase's buyout of Bear Sterns;  $4 billion in grants to local communities (see FACTBOX). 

Oops, and then today the Federal Reserve expanded it's bank refinancing operation listed as $200 billion above to $900 billion.  That brings the total, so far, to $2.3 trillion (would an exclamation point be redundant?).

When the House initially failed to pass the bailout,  the legislation was was loaded up with congressional earmarks  (polite term for pork) in an effort to buy the votes of enough legislators to pass it the second time around.  Whole sections of legislators' pet legislation that had previously failed to pass muster was simply plugged unchanged into the emergency bill.

We have things such as tax breaks for Oregon manufacturers of wooden arrows; a tax incentive program to benefit the California film industry; and a rebate for excise taxes on rum imported from Puerto Rico.  For an analysis of some of the more egregious tax breaks done by Taxpayers for Common Sense see: http://tinyurl.com/4ha9sl.

President Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell should have had the leadership to jointly announce that this legislation was too critical to play games with and that they would not accept any attempts to add anything to the legislation not directly related to its stated purpose of relieving the country's credit crisis.

But that is not what happened.  First they showed a total disrespect for the American voter by assuming that we were too stupid to understand the details.  That's why they sent no e-mails, held no press conferences, or attended any local forums attempting to explain this legislation and their vote to the voters.  They just tallied up the phone calls and went with the flow. 

Second They succumbed to greed.  They took advantage of this emergency to add to this legislation items that would never have passed on their own.  And then they did not even take the time to insure that this legislation would, in fact, do what they wanted it to.  Notice that they used the market's over 700 point drop earlier in the week as a justification for hastily passing the legislation, yet even after passing the legislation the market continued its downward slide today.  Legislate in haste, pay for
it at leisure.

So perhaps giving $200,000 in tax exemptions to charitable organizations who purchase wooden arrows (to the benefit of the sales of Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point Oregon) is not such a big deal, but the fact that was the only way to pass critical legislation is. 

It shows that we are not governed by statesmen, but impotent pretenders.