The bailout legislation as originally proposed was flawed, but it had the very admirable feature of being 3 pages long. The latest version has grown to over 450 pages, and includes such gems as:
Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.
I wish to God I was making this up. Can we take a moment to come together as a country, leaving aside partisanship, and with all our might, just direct pure hate towards our dear Congress?
I haven’t read that anywhere, do you have a link? Politico, the Sunlight Foundation, and other articles I’ve gone through say that all these extra things are being tacked on to try to swing key votes in the House or to force particular delegations that already support the bailout to let through other legislation they oppose.
Posted by Jason on 1 October 2008 @ 9pm
No, no I don’t. LOL. I made a pass, but couldn’t find anything. I thought I saw it on the news this morning. But as a procedural matter, isn’t the house required to pass the bill first if it were a new piece of legislation?
I do agree with your original point though.
Posted by Charles de Granville on 1 October 2008 @ 10pm
The constitution says that “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.” There isn’t anything else about who has to draft or pass what first, but maybe there are other procedural rules in place? That would be interesting to find out.
Posted by Jason on 1 October 2008 @ 10pm
I’m not positive about this, but I believe this is a result of the measures that the senate had to take in order to vote on the bailout before the house. My understanding is that they had to basically append the bailout bill to another bill that the senate was going to pass, but hadn’t yet. The idea was to get it passed in the senate first (where it was more likely to pass), which would then create momentum for it in the house.
Posted by Charles de Granville on 1 October 2008 @ 9pm