Calling this stuff pork is an insult to pigs worldwide
We need a new term. Anyone know what hippopotamus meat is called?
Quote of note:
Out of the 264 provisions now in the legislation, 146 were added as "sweeteners" after it was voted out of committee, said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy at the budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. And senators still have more than 70 amendments pending when they take it back up, possibly this week.
"This is one of the biggest exercises in congressional vote buying we have ever seen," Ashdown said.
And not everyone is so sure the tax cuts will really be paid for. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that more than two dozen of the tax cuts abruptly disappear in a few years, but their offsetting provisions extend over 10 years. If those tax cuts are extended, as they routinely are, the cost of the legislation would quickly balloon.
Special-Interest Add-Ons Weigh Down Tax-Cut Bill
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01
Congress's task seemed simple enough: Repeal an illegal $5 billion-a-year export subsidy and replace it with some modest tax breaks to ease the pain on U.S. exporters.
But out of that imperative has emerged one of the most complex, special-interest-riddled corporate tax bills in years, lawmakers, Senate aides and tax lobbyists say. The 930-page epic is packed with $170 billion in tax cuts aimed at cruise-ship operators, foreign dog-race gamblers, NASCAR track owners, bow-and-arrow makers and Oldsmobile dealers, to name a few. There is even a $94 million break for a single hotel in Sioux City, Iowa.
Even one of the tax lobbyists involved in drafting it conceded the bill "has risen to a new level of sleaze."
"I said a few months ago, any lobbyist worth his salt has something in this bill," said the lobbyist, who would only speak candidly on condition of anonymity. "Now you see what I'm talking about."
