So what does the bailout plan give us . . .

[Marlive]

Millions of taxpayers, thousands of businesses and groups as diverse as solar power developers and natural disaster victims will see tax relief with the House vote Friday to approve and send to the president a $700 billion financial rescue plan.

The tax relief package attached to the rescue bill promotes renewable energy development and extends dozens of tax breaks from the critical research and development tax credit to breaks for such narrowly focused groups as motor sports racetrack owners, film producers and bicycle commuters.

The renewable energy part of the package alone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, will "create and save half-a-million good-paying jobs in America immediately."

Virtually all of the tax breaks already exist. But many of them expired Jan. 1 for use in the current tax year, and the others will expire three months from now unless Congress renews them.

The largest group of beneficiaries in the tax portion of the financial rescue bill is about 20 million mainly upper-middle income taxpayers. Without congressional action, the AMT, with originally was supposed to affect only the very rich, would add some $2,000 this year to the tax bill of these people, most earning under $200,000 a year.

Thousands of businesses are waiting for renewal of the research and development tax credit, which expired at the end of last year. Without that credit, industry advocates say, high tech, biotech and aerospace companies would have trouble hiring the highly skilled workers needed to compete with foreign competitors.

The Information Technology Association of America reports an $18.5 billion drop in R&D activity since the beginning of the year, when the credit lapsed. The R&D credit extension would cost $19 billion over 10 years. The cost of the entire tax portion of the bill is close to $110 billion.

The renewable energy incentives include an eight-year extension of investment credits for solar energy, as well as breaks for wind, geothermal and other alternative sources. The solar industry says extension of the credits through 2016 would produce an extra 440,000 jobs and more than $230 billion in investments.

The measure also has $8 billion in tax breaks for disaster victims, $5 billion for higher education tuition deductions and $400 million in deductions for teachers who buy school supplies with their own money.

There are $3 billion in deductions for residents of states without income taxes that have state and local sales taxes. Extending the deduction would save Texans a projected $1.2 billion a year or an average of $520 per filer claiming the deduction, said Matt Mackowiak, spokesman for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

There are also some four dozen small provisions. Among them, with projected costs over 10 years:

_Extending an expired provision that gives Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate against excise taxes charged on imported rum. The rebate, at $13.50 per proof gallon, helps finance local infrastructure projects. The cost is $192 million.

_Establishing a new tax credit ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-in electric-drive vehicles. Cost: $758 million.

_Extending tax credits that expired at the end of 2007 for certain domestic corporations involved in American Samoa economic development. Cost: $33 million.

_Extending a credit of up to $10,000 for the training of mine rescue team members. The credit expires at the end of this year and the one-year extension costs $4 million.

_Enacting President Bush's proposal to erase the debt of the black lung disability trust fund at a cost of $1.3 billion.

_Extending for one year a seven-year depreciation timetable that NASCAR and other motorsport racing facilities have had for some years, the same tax break that amusement parks enjoy. Without the extension, the tracks would have to depreciate the cost of their improvements over 15 years, raising their taxes by $100 million.

_Extending for five years a program that reduces import duties on some wool fabrics. The tariff relief benefits U.S. worsted wool fabric producers that use imported fibers and yarns. Cost: $148 million.

_Increasing the single-year deduction in production costs, from $15 million to $20 million, that film and TV productions may take if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas. In an effort to keep film and TV productions in the U.S., it also allows more companies to use a domestic production deduction. Cost: $478 million.

_Allowing commercial fishermen and others hurt by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska to average out damage awards over three years rather than taking a one-year hit from the IRS. Cost: $49 million.

_Extending two programs that fund rural schools and rural communities that have been relying on declining income from logging on federal land or have low property tax bases because they are located on or next to federal lands. This is a major issue in the West. Cost: $3.3 billion.

_Exempting wooden practice arrows used by children from an excise tax of 39 cents per arrow. Oregon's two senators and two Wisconsin representatives previously introduced legislation calling for the action, saying the tax was meant for more expensive archery arrows and is untenable for makers of toy arrows that may cost only about 30 cents apiece. The bill would affect about a half-dozen manufacturers nationwide, including one in Oregon; the Oregon senators said they didn't seek its addition to the bailout, however. Cost: $2 million.

_Allowing employers to exempt from taxation what they spend on some fringe benefits for workers who commute to work by bicycle, for example reimbursing the cost of parking the bikes. Cost: $2 million.

Some House members and radio-TV commentators have called for eliminating several of the measures, including those affecting wooden arrows, Puerto Rican rum, racetracks and film producers.

"All these things are called sweeteners in order to get votes from Democrats and Republicans in the House," conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh said at the opening of his show Thursday. "To get this bailout through the Senate and House, they've added pork. Surprise, surprise."

[Marlive]

You can actually read this story online, "Tax breaks big and small sweeten financial bailout"

[Wil]

This is just a very sad day for America, and we are forever, a changed nation. Sadly, our Government, led by the Democratic party is most responsible for the mess we're in. Here is a video piece that articulates the lies and deceits that were committed...

[Marlive]

LOL!

Nope Wil, I am disappointed in EVERYONE in Washington and therefore, I cannot in all fairness allow you to say this was the fault of a Democratic Congress becaue the problems with our economy and the de-regulation of Wall Street along with some other BIG issues did not just happen under this Congress' watch. Nope we won't get it twisted my friend, for ALL of our leaders, both Republican and Democrats are at fault for this one. And speaking of California, what's this I hear about your Govenor calling up Washington today talking about needing money just to keep your state in the black? And your Govenor is . . . Republican? As I said, there is enough blame to go around to BOTH parties, that is for sure.

So a Republican President drafted this bailout plan and a Democratic Congress agreed to pass it last week, but a group of Republicans killed it . . . . and I don't blame them. I understand that we needed to do something because our country is in financial turmoil, but I wanted both parties to stop all the drama and sit their butts down and get about the business of truly comig up with a plan that wasn't a band-aid for this week. But they let Paulsen, who we all know the deal on him, feed into the frenzy and made them rush to pass something. Again, those same Republicans who killed it last week could have killed it today . . .. but they didn't. So in essence, EVERYONE is lying about what "shoulda-coulda" happen with our economy.

[Wil]

Well said, Marlive. like you, I am very upset at what's going on, and I want our Presidential candidates to cut the bull. Of all concerned, only Sarah, being an "outsider" seems authentic to me. Barack, Joe and John are all just much more of the same... too bad for us.

With that said, thank you for posting the "pork" for all of us to see, and understand. A sad day for all of us, with more bad news to follow, I'm afraid to say!

[Marlive]

When I heard that this bailout plan went from $700 Billion to $850 Billion, I just had to see what the additions were and being upset cannot begin to explain how I really feel with EVERYONE in Washington and with our State governments too!

You are so right about the candidates needing to cut out all the bull! I like Obama, but I have some serious problems with some of his education reforms and I'm not in favor of national health care like many here want for I have friends in Canada who tell me all the time that this plan is not what we think it is and that we should really think long and hard about implementing it here. And considerng the way our Government has been operating lately, I don't want then managing National Health Care for us. Yet, I definitely don't like what McCain is offering us either.

Palin authentic? Okay, I'm not a 6-packer, a soccer mom, or any of the descriptions she has a tendency to throw out there whenever she is talking to America. And frankly all that winking and "you betcha" she did during last night's debate was not impressive nor did it make me feel she really knows whats really going on in America let alone in Washington. All I saw last night when she could not find an answer to a tough question put to her on her index cards, was a woman who only knows one thing for sure and that is to talk about energy. Now don't get me wrong Wil, Biden told some lies about McCain during that debate last night, but so did Palin tell some about Obama . . . and in light of all that lying that went on between them last night . . . authenticy goes right out the window for me with regards to her-- LOL!

And if I hear someone say it is her Executive experience as Govenor of Alaska that makes her more qualified to be president than Obama should something happen to McCain considering his age and actual health, I am going to yell. I say that because George Bush took office 8 years ago from being Govenor of Texas and you see where his Executive experience got us.

Yes, Palin is an outsider that is just as bad as everyone else running for office. The closer we get to November the more I am dreading to have to vote!

[Wil]

Again, well said— heck, I say "Marlive Harris for President!!! :-)

Marlive, so much has changed in the past few months. I am really worried about our country... I REALLY am! There is SO much they aren't telling us. The ripple effects of all of this are going to be more severe than any of us can imagine. Meanwhile, the politicians are just trying to cover their butts and acting like they just "saved" us— WOW! Deflecting blame and responsibility... What's next?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Marlive]

I'm very worried about our country too Wil, and is probably why I am so riled up and venting this evening - LOL! Your Abraham Lincoln quote sums up beautifully what is really happening to us for sure!

Me for president? I wouldn't make a good president Wil because I'm too practical and simplistic which is something a real politician is not -- LOL! I know runing a country is not a simple task but think about it Wil, many of our Senators and Representatives are a bunch a lawyers. So in essence we've been asking a bunch of lawyers to balance our budget and make our economy solid again. But can someone trained in law really do that effectively? What if we mixed it up in Washington and had more accountants in Congress sitting on the Ways and Means Committee? With more of them I think we would have better control of our spending and would see more of a balance budget each year a new president took office. But let's not stop there, what if we had more economist in Congress as well. Their ability to study, develop, and apply theories and concepts regarding the economic future would be what we need to get back on track. But as I said, my way of thinking is simply too simplistic and definitely not political enough for the masses.

I wondered what everyone in Washington thought when the Stock Market fell sharply and closed 150 points despite the passing of the bailout plan today. And regardless of who becomes president in November, there is really nothing that person can do right their first year in office that will alleviate the rocky road we are about to experience in the days and months to come.

[Wil]

You are so practical, Marlive. Bless you!!! Yes, I am feeling pretty edgy myself, in case you couldn't tell.

Concerning the stock market, I have always know that Wall Street is a sham, like gambling where the elite are in total and complete control... playing with everyone's money, but their own. We make a few peanuts (if we're patient, and lucky), or lose it all, while the slicksters make money whether the market goes up OR down... GEEEZ!!! No matter to me though, I have ZERO $$$ in the stock market, thankfully. I will NEVER put my money into stocks... NEVER! :-)

Good night Sis, and thanks for letting me blow of some of my steam!

[Wil]

For anyone who cares to better understand some of the facts, that led to the meltdown of Fannie and Freddie, here is an excerpt from an article as seen online (October 4, 2008) at the New York Times:

Fannie and Freddie... Sustained by Government
Had Fannie been a private entity, its comeuppance might have happened a year ago. But the White House, Wall Street and Capitol Hill were more concerned about the trillions of dollars in other loans that were poisoning financial institutions and banks.

Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, leaned on Fannie and Freddie to buy and hold those troubled debts, hoping that removing them from the system would help the economy recover. The companies, eager to regain market share and buy what they thought were undervalued loans, rushed to comply.

The White House also pitched in. James B. Lockhart, the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie, adjusted the companies’ lending standards so they could purchase as much as $40 billion in new subprime loans. Some in Congress praised the move.

“I’m not worried about Fannie and Freddie’s health, I’m worried that they won’t do enough to help out the economy,” the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said at the time. “That’s why I’ve supported them all these years — so that they can help at a time like this.”

But earlier this year, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. grew concerned about Fannie’s and Freddie’s stability. He sent a deputy, Robert K. Steel, a former colleague from his time at Goldman Sachs, to speak with Mr. Mudd and his counterpart at Freddie.
Mr. Steel’s orders, according to several people, were to get commitments from the companies to raise more money as a cushion against all the new loans. But when he met with the firms, Mr. Steel made few demands and seemed unfamiliar with Fannie’s and Freddie’s operations, according to someone who attended the discussions.

Rather than getting firm commitments, Mr. Steel struck handshake deals without deadlines.

That misstep would become obvious over the coming months. Although Fannie raised $7.4 billion, Freddie never raised any additional money.

Mr. Steel, who left the Treasury Department over the summer to head Wachovia bank, disputed that he had failed in his handling of the companies, and said he was proud of his work .

As the housing crisis worsened, Fannie and Freddie announced larger losses, and shares continued falling.
In July, Mr. Paulson asked Congress for authority to take over Fannie and Freddie, though he said he hoped never to use it. “If you’ve got a bazooka and people know you’ve got it, you may not have to take it out,” he told Congress.

Mr. Mudd called Treasury weekly. He offered to resign, to replace his board, to sell stock, and to raise debt. “We’ll sign in blood anything you want,” he told a Treasury official, according to someone with knowledge of the conversations.

But, according to that person, Mr. Mudd told Treasury that those options would work only if government officials publicly clarified whether they intended to take over Fannie. Otherwise, potential investors would refuse to buy the stock for fear of being wiped out.
“There were other options on the table short of a takeover,” Mr. Mudd said. But as long as Treasury refused to disclose its goals, it was impossible for the company to act, according to people close to Fannie.

Then, last month, Mr. Mudd was instructed to report to Mr. Lockhart’s office. Mr. Paulson told Mr. Mudd that he could either agree to a takeover or have one forced upon him.

“This is the right thing to do for the economy,” Mr. Paulson said, according to two people with knowledge of the talks. “We can’t take any more risks.”

Freddie was given the same message. Less than 48 hours later, Mr. Lockhart and Mr. Paulson ended Fannie and Freddie’s independence, with up to $200 billion in taxpayer money to replenish the companies’ coffers.

The move failed to stanch a spreading panic in the financial world. In fact, some analysts say, the takeover accelerated the hysteria by signaling that no company, no matter how large, was strong enough to withstand the losses stemming from troubled loans.
Within weeks, Lehman Brothers was forced to declare bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was pushed into the arms of Bank of America, and the government stepped in to bail out the insurance giant the American International Group.

Today, Mr. Paulson is scrambling to carry out a $700 billion plan to bail out the financial sector, while Mr. Lockhart effectively runs Fannie and Freddie.

Mr. Raines and Mr. Howard, who kept most of their millions, are living well. Mr. Raines has improved his golf game. Mr. Howard divides his time between large homes outside Washington and Cancun, Mexico, where his staff is learning how to cook American meals.

But Mr. Mudd, who lost millions of dollars as the company’s stock declined and had his severance revoked after the company was seized, often travels to New York for job interviews. He recalled that one of his sons recently asked him why he had been fired.

“Sometimes things don’t work out, no matter how hard you try,” he replied.

[Wil]

BAILOUT UPDATE:
The Democrats ARE responsible— sad but true!

I have been researching this whole Freddie/Fannie mess, including having just watched a new, unbiased documentary— "Saving Our Economy", that aired today on Fox (that airs again tomorrow, Sunday 10/4) that undeniably places the overwhelming responsibility of this meltdown on the Democratic Party. Each and every one of you owe it to yourself, as does anyone who REALLY cares about this issue, to watch this programming, and to also conduct the required due diligence to your satisfaction.

This cannot be tied to the Republican Party, and it's time that the folks involved come clean, and that the American people acknowledge the facts. It's so ironic that the Democrats are the perceived "champions of the economy", yet ARE the acute culprits whom have caused the greatest financial crisis of our time.

[Marlive]

Yes, Democratic President Clinton in 1999 mandated the Government to provide loans to homeowners that could not afford them. And bankers and investors gleefully stepped up to the plate to do so and came up with all types of creative ways to get these homeowners in homes.

Where the Republicans comes in on all this is that President Bush and many of the Republicans in Washington continued to endorse this plan over these past 8 years. The reason they probably did was that if these loans failed, there would be Government intervention to safeguard those lenders. And you know what Wil? I believe that was the plan becaue before I became an educator and librarian, I was a Loan Closer here is Texas during the early 1980's when Houston was the thriving Oil town. The mortgage business was booming here and creative financing was going on at that time as well. I know for a fact it was because as a Loan Closer, I drew up many of the documents that homeowners signed which later ended up in Foreclosure because the booming Oil industry took a dive.

But the creativeness of the financing that went on with these homeowners simply got out of control. And when those in Washington saw what was happening with all this creative lending 2 years ago (2 years ago attention was called on this in Washington) nothing was done about it. One of the reasons nothing was done at that time was because they were counting on the US economy and the global financial scene to get better (which is why you see many reports of Bush and Paulsen saying over and over how healthy our economy was for the past 2 years) and problems that they were seeing at that time with mortgages would work itself out.

So even though the ideal may have began with the Democrats, the Republican party under the leadership of Bush for the past 8 years kept it going even when they were warned about the problems. If Bush wanted to stop what was turning into a major problem for this country, he could have. Hey Paulsen knew what was happending to, but ran around here saying not to worry everything is looing good. So you cannot blame it all on one party for there is enough blame to go around to ALL parties involved - that is for sure!

[Marlive]

This article appeared in The New Yorker

The Choice - http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/13/081013taco_talk_ed...

Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.

The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition t