Bailout Garbage
Politico.com
With each permutation, the bill has steadily grown in size. Treasury’s initial plan was about three pages long. The House version, which failed, stretched to 110. The Senate substitute now runs over 450 pages. And tucked away in the tax provisions is a landmark health care provision demanding that insurance companies provide coverage for mental health treatment—such as hospitalization—on parity with physical illnesses.
This seems to me to be an indictment of our entire political class. Yes, the bailout bill is important, but because it is important it should be just about the bailout.
Of course some Senators (and Representatives when it goes back to the house) won’t vote for just the bailout, they demand special extras to buy their vote, and the Senate bill is loaded with those extras, 100s of pages worth of them. That they would vote for a 700b package that they don’t think is good only because their is pork for their constituants (doubtless powerful financial backers of their careers) is pretty disgusting. Equally disgusting are those who think the 700b is needed, but are so sure it is so necessary that they can hold it hostage for their pet pork projects.
Congress has always been pretty bad, but this one is the worst I can recall in a long time.
