A repeal of a tax on wooden arrows is but one of the many pork provisions getting tacked onto the bailout bill in order to win support from recalcitrant Congress Critters. So while the world watches and waits for us to rescue the financial system, our elected representatives are holding things up until they can grab their piece of the action. Awesome. This one is even better than the $0.10 Michigan recycling refund. I’ve been trying to crunch the numbers on my wooden arrow business for ages. Finally the margins will work. Full text of the passage, inside. What other fun special-interest pork projects can you find tacked onto this bill? Let us know in the comments.
NEWMAN: (peering at bottle label) What is this ‘MI, ten cents’?
KRAMER: That’s Michigan. In Michigan you get ten cents.
NEWMAN: Ten cents!?
KRAMER: Yeah.
NEWMAN: Wait a minute. You mean you get five cents here, and ten cents there. You could round up bottles here and run ‘em out to Michigan for the difference.
KRAMER: No, it doesn’t work.
NEWMAN: What d’you mean it doesn’t work? You get enough bottles together…
KRAMER: Yeah, you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on gasoline. Trust me, it doesn’t work.
S 3055 [NYT] (PDF)
Text version [Open Congress]
(Photo: Getty)
That does it. I am voting against every single incumbent this year, on every level, from dog catcher up to Senator.
@Roy Hobbs: Do it responsibly… not everyone voted yes.
@Roy Hobbs:
Now, now… make sure one of the incumbents didn’t vote against this crap bill. Wouldn’t want to send the wrong message.
@pezhore: My wonderful Russ Feingold voted against it (just as he voted down the Patriot Act). My political crush continues.
Awesome! This is going to so totally fix the housing crises and guarantee that banks will start making loans again (at amazingly reasonable rates too!)!!!
Oh wait… this bailout/rescue doesn’t do anything of the sort?… damn… we’re all still pretty screwed
At least we’re keeping the pirates at bay – more rum?
Are there any subsidies for wooden wagon wheel makers???
@econobiker:
No, the wooden wagon wheel issue will be revisited in about 3 months when Paulson comes back asking for more money.
@econobiker: I have been lobbying day and night for the buggywhip industry, to no avail…
“This one is even better than the $0.10 Michigan recycling refund.”
Are you ridiculing Michigan’s pop can deposit program? Because that would just be stupid. Every state should have a deposit program.
@Tmoney02: Right on. Anything that keeps this crap out of the landfills and/or off the side of the road is good. Every state should have a similar deposit law.
The version of the bill that I saw that had this in there also had a provision for money for bicycle commuters. Now THAT I can support! I bicycle commute nearly all the time.
Also in the interest of fairness they added 2 more years of letting sales-tax only states residents deduct their state sales tax from their income on the 1040. Why that isn’t permanent is beyond me.
@Marshfield:
Hate to pick on you Marshfield (esp, since my last name is Marsh), but its adding provisions like the bicycle commuter cut out that carried this bill. Its not that I oppose the wooden arrow provision (actually it sort of makes sense as another Consumerist commentator has shown) – but this bill, having major impact on the future free market should have had the smallest amount of extraneous provisions added to it.
Fer christ’s sake, the main bill was to require mental health issues to be treated the same as physical health problems. So what now… those who voted against this bail out are also against the mentally handicapped and clinically depressed?
We saw what happened on Monday when the bill was $700bil with little earmarks – it got shut down. The Senate then used a can’t fail bill and amended the crap out of it to ensure it would pass both the houses of Congress… amendments that added almost $150bil to the overall cost.
This is utter horseshit.
Finally Americans will have access to the wooden arrows they need. They can use their credit card!
Yeah, i read this on yahoo news this morning. i thought i was going to die. I hope Steven Colbert address this issue, he could do wonders with it.
Wouldn’t the line-item veto help minimize some of this crap? Of course the vetos would probably fall along party lines…and the argument that it gives the prez too much power. But this is bs.
I just may write-in Harry S. Truman come this November. I mean, really, arrows? Wool? Seems we’ve got a big bunch of morons in congress. Time to get ‘em all out of there.
i waited and waited and waited….
and no one did it.
i have to. can – not – resist – temptation -any – longer —
if the bill doesn’t pass, toy arrow makers are going to get shafted…..
I grudgingly supported the original bill on the proposition that it was absolutely necessary to stanch the bleeding of an extremely volatile financial sector. Now that a week has passed and there has been no massive collapse, and now that I see that Congress has had enough time to shove in a heap of the obligatory pork, I’m much less convinced of the urgency of this distasteful solution when there are slower but more responsible alternatives. I’m thoroughly convinced of the bipartisan incompetence and corruption of our Congress.
Susan Davis, if there’s anything I can do to ensure that you never serve in the House of Representatives again, I’ll make sure I do it, starting Nov 4. John McCain and Barack Obama, you’ve done nothing here to demonstrate any of the “change” or “reform” you’ve been peddling even when given a perfect opportunity to show some sober, responsible leadership. I think a 9% congressional approval rating is generous.
@AtomicPlayboy: All I have to say is….ditto…
This thing needs to be vetoed, since it has more pork than a shipping container filled with Spam. We are supposed to be a in a crisis and these asshats want to blow money on their little pet projects. Typical!
@Triborough: Problem is, it isn’t going to get vetoed by a president who, along with his (histrionic) SecTreas, championed the whole bailout all along. Ugh.
@Triborough: Wait, are you sure Spam has actual pork in it?
I really cant believe that they had the balls to pass this bill. I am going to vote against all of my state reps who voted for this.
And you have got to love the change from “bailout bill” to “rescue plan”. Gimme a break…
Man, this is just like the gub’ment – affirmative action for dem damn Injuns! I demand a tax break on wagon circles, dagnabbit!
The other white meat.
This should be illegal. Imagine the reduction in federal taxes if they would eliminate gross spending like this. If a state, city, or county wants to have pet projects then have those that live in that state/city/county fund those projects with increased LOCAL taxes.
Hmmm… while the wooden arrow and other interesting (read: stupid) provisions that were tacked on to this bill are a sign of what politics in the US has come to be, I think we maybe missed something more important here (Or maybe I’m one of the few worried about this).
[wattsupwiththat.com]
This is ridiculous. How the F— is a government that is broke ($4 trillion in debt) supposed to pay for this?
Tax money? (Thanks a f—ing lot)
or tell the Federal Reserve to print more money (Yay! Hyperinflation just what I always wanted.)
How come the rich get bailout, the poor get welfare….WTF does the middle class get besides getting s__t on? I mean seriously, why does the middle class ALWAYS have to be the one that sacrafices? Im tired of it.
Pork provisions are tacked onto bills all day long, year in and year out, by both Republicans and Democrats, in both the house and senate. Has been for years and will continue for years.
Why the sudden shock?
@usa_gatekeeper:
I hate the bail out bill period in anyway shape or form. Reverse Robin Hood blows. The pork added on is just grainy salt added to the wound.
I’ve never been a single issue voter like the Iraq war, abortion, etc.
HOWEVER, with this not frickin’ sweet, corporate handout package I will make an exception now and forever. If you were dumb enough to vote for this than you’ll be dumb enough to vote for other stuff.
I don’t care if we’re in agreement 99.99% of the time. If you voted for this hunk of crap you will not be able to buy my vote. That would just make me a hypocrite like you. I hope those pieces of silver you sold out the country for, to the damn lobbyist who is lining your corrupt pockets while getting his/her slice of pork pie, burns a hole through your pants and ass*%$e!
I am so pissed that this piece of FUBAR piece of legislation passed. Everything is aOK in DC, SNAFU is in place everyone.
It’s bad enough that we are giving 700 billion to the very folks who screwed up, but on top of that we are again giving tax breaks. Instead of tax breaks we should be taxing those folks. The can afford to help pay for their own salvation. They should bail out the poor and middle class and give us tax breaks.
@ageshin:
+1
Exactly Where the F is my bailout? I got bills too. Our government doesn’t give a damn about the middle class. They have failed us.
@ageshin: The poor don’t need tax breaks. They pay no income taxes.
38% of all American households pay no income taxes.
The bailout bill, in any form they’ve done, is not the solution to the problem we face. Sweden had a terrific solution that worked when they had the same problem in the early 1990s; why not just use their solution? It helped the people, the economy, and didn’t reward people who’d done a lousy job.
But this wooden arrow tax repeal was a good, sensible thing, which I notice no one here is wondering. Shouldn’t you wonder what’s going on with your government and try to find out? Living in ognorance isn’t a good way to run a democracy, in fact, Jefferson specifically pointed out that it can’t be done. And when your ignorance can be cured with a 5 second online search it’s really inexcusable. Here’s why the wooden arrow tax was repealed; it’s because the tax is supposed to be for hunting equipment and they realised that toy wooden arrows aren’t hunting equipment, so they thought kids’ toys shouldn’t be used to subsidise spending for hunters’ interests. Does anyone here really not agree that kids’ toys shouldn’t be used to subsidise spending for hunters’ interests?
And Why Was the Wooden Arrow Tax Exemption Passed 93-2? Because It’s Utterly Uncontroversial
Long story short: All hunting equipment is taxed, the taxes put into some sort of trust and then sent back to the states as matching grants for their hunting management/support programs.
Since toy wooden arrows are not used for hunting, a specific exception is made for them. It’s really just to stop toy arrows from being miscategorized as “hunting equipment,” subject to the tax, when they’re obviously not that at all. It’s pretty much the same as a bill saying that toy cap pistols shouldn’t be hit with a general tax on firearms.
when are you people going to learn that (almost) nobody in government gives two @&(%’s about you or your well-being.
everyone join me and watch from the sidelines as our government for and by the people votes to make us more impoverished and the make the rich richer.
more of the same. if you’re surprised you haven’t been paying attention.
The federal government has just as much business worrying about wooden arrows as they do your home mortgage – NONE. Washington has turned into Peewee’s Playhouse. This country is screwed.
not trying to justify pork (ie wooden dowels), but I believe one reason some of these pork “bills” are attached are because it takes longer to pass a bill to train mine workers for emergencies (or whatever) than it does to just paste a paragraph on a bill that is already going to go through, and possibly sweeten that bills chance of being passed at the same time.