Earmarks In Bailout Bill: Some Good, Some Bad

Chalk one up for Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite of Brooksville. When the House narrowly defeated the $700 billion bailout bill almost two weeks ago, Ms. Brown-Waite dismissed the financial rescue package as more "business as usual in Washington."
The Tampa Bay congresswoman was obviously voicing the irate sentiments of the majority of her constituents. She also presaged events to come.
When the House passed the Senate's doctored version last week, the bailout had suddenly become $150 billion more expensive.
Earmarks had been tacked on so the package would be more palatable to both House and Senate lawmakers. "Business as usual in Washington:" an understatement!
Earmarks are apparently entrenched in Washington's way of life, an age-old practice of slipping pet local projects into more weighty national legislation.
That's "pork" to you and me. Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate, promises to clear the legislative decks of many federal expenditures that smack of earmarks when he's elected president.
Good luck, senator.
Now that the bailout has been adopted, what are we stuck with beyond the $700 billion that will pull the country out of an alleged financial tailspin?
The latest round of bailout pork is bundled mainly as "tax relief." Yes, there is some good in earmarks. One of the additions was a "patch" to protect some 20 million taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)burden. AMT protection is important enough to warrant its own legislation.
A valid defense could probably be made for the bill's amendment to grant relief to American Northwest toymakers. Their low-cost Chinese competitors pour too much lead on their toys anyway. But will the relief actually clinch hundreds of new manufacturing jobs in Oregon?
You could even argue that $150 million in lower textile duties for Chicago tailors might help boost the American economy. Business suits sewn in America better fit Americans, logically, than anything coming off the rack in slim-line Malaysia. Will you be buying a new suit, though, when your home mortgage is out of sight?
There's no immediate reason to object to$4 million in tax credits to train mine rescue teams or $760 million for buyers of nonpolluting electric cars. Good earmarks, but do they belong in the bailout bill?
I have to scratch my head, however, over tax relief for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. What on earth do they have to do with the nation's rash of home foreclosures or with the price of beans? Lending a$225 million hand to the territories just pads the rescue bill's total of $150 billion worth of add-ons.
That's about the same amount as the now-infamous "bridge to nowhere" in the Alaskan wilderness would have cost taxpayers.
Even more of a stretch are the $100 million for NASCAR facilities and $2 million to exempt wooden practice arrows from tax. How will archery and auto racing help rescue the nation's economy?
In an election year let's hope that the voters understand that earmark pork leads to government waste and even corruption. Why, really, did Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama seek $2 million for a Chicago aquarium that otherwise runs $8 million in the black.
Will that slice of pork bail out the poor family in Brooksville that lost its home to foreclosure?