I wrote earlier about how Ace pointed out that the ‘pork’ in the bailout bill actually was preexisting in the bill that they tacked it on to, and not added as part of the bailout.
He is right.
I started to verify that, and pulled the boneheaded mistake of mixing up my dates, and compared the Senate bill from last week to the House version from May, instead of comparing the 9/23 Senate bill to the bailout bill (the bailout amendment was to the Senate version, which had already passed, not the House version).
In fact, I wrote an entire post on what I found. I had it up on the site for 10-15 minutes, the took it down because it is almost completely wrong. If anyone wants a copy of the irrelevant comparison of the wrong bills, email me and I’ll send you a copy.
To come full circle, Ace is 100% correct — which I figured out after he emailed me back to ask what versions of the bill I compared. In response to my email telling him he was wrong. Ahem.
In any case, the Senate bill which passed last Tuesday, amended and engrossed H.R. 6049, contains the wooden arrows, wool research, and all the other items that are currently being pointed out by all and sundry.
I’ll try to find the time tomorrow to dig through the actual bailout portion of the bill and compare it to the House version, but no promises.
MINOR UPDATE:
Forgot to mention that I had the procedure a wrong in my previous post, too. A signfiicant amount of ‘pork’ was indeed added by the Senate, but it was added prior to last week’s vote on the underlying bill. So I was being a bit too hard on the House, and giving the Senate a pass.
ANOTHER MINOR UPDATE:
This makes me feel better about McCain praising this version of the bill. Thinking that all that lard had been added pursuant to the bailout, I wondered what he was smoking.
Since there is so much focus on the crazy deductions allowed by the complete bill, he needs to make it clear to people that they are not at all related to the bailout.
