The Housing Bill Passed which was approved by the Senate

With two candidates, one for so called "Change," and the other a supposed Maverick, I expected to see at least one them come out against this bill, but they both voted for it. It would have been a great time for McCain to have stepped up and said "This bill does not do anything for the American People, and quite honestly might not even fix the economy." Nobody is sure, but the free market COULD HAVE corrected itself, and if the House passes the bill, then I guess we will never know. Companies that still have Capital are acquiring other companies and growing, so the economy as a whole has not stopped, and nor will it. McCain has spoken out against earmarks and pork barrel spending, and Obama loved those two things until he announced he was running for President. In a way, Obama lives up to his, well, ears, when it comes to earmarks.

I skimmed through the entire 451 Bailout plan, which from my understanding started off at 3 pages some time last week. This bill will pretty much make the U.S. the biggest landlord in the world. The bill itself mentions that the Federal Government will, hold, control or own the mortgages. If they own the mortgage, then they pretty much own the house until it is paid off, this is scary. Within the contents of the bill were, some items which I honestly am not quite sure how they would help the economy. I have listed these interesting bits below:

-The FDIC Insurance does go up, this helps out the people more psychologically than anything else, but only through 12/31/2009. I thought the whole reason for the increase was to account for inflation since the coverage has been $100K since the 1970's.

-There are tons of Energy Tax Credits, but really nothing about drilling or our energy Independence, so it is just a waste of time and pages.

-They extended the FUTA Surtax for two years, this is a surtax that costs employers roughly $14 per year, per employee. Aren't we trying to create jobs here? (Sec. 404)

-The "Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund Tax" was increased, don't we have a "energy crisis?" They raised the tax by 3 cents per barrel through 2016, and 4 cents after that. I mean it is only pennies, but doesn't every penny count? (Sec. 405)

-The extended an Economic Development Credit for American Samoa. I don't even know what to say. (Sec. 309)

-They extended the tax credit for mine rescue team training and the election to expense advanced mine safety equipment. I am all for safety, but why is this inserted into this bill? (Sec. 310 &311)

-There is a section on railroad track maintenance which is not too specific, but again I have no idea why this is in this bill. (Sec. 316)

Now it starts to get interesting:

-Seven year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility. Seriously? Someone decided they had to appeal to their Nascar fan constituents? (Sec. 317)

-(By far my favorite) Extension and Modification of Duty Suspension on Wool Products, and Wool Duty Refunds. This also helps the Wool Research Trust Fund. This one is priceless. I was not aware that wool products and their research had a trust fund. Everyone run and get your wool sweaters, now Duty Free! (Sec. 325)

-I wonder which party put this in the bill? (Please note the sarcasm) They have tax deductions for film and television productions. I did not know that liberal hollywood and the media was hurting. (Sec. 502)

-Another good one. There is an excise tax exemption, and this is how it is worded, "for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children." This applies to the shaft only, and they cannot be larger than 5/16 of inch in diameter. (Sec. 503)

-There is also a section regarding taxpayers who receive qualified settlements from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It states that when they pay taxes, the income source "shall be treated as engaged in a fishing business." (Sec. 504)

-There are 57 pages on Natural Disaster Relief and funding for Special Projects on Federal Land, which honestly I did not read because, again it was 451 pages.

-The last item I noticed bothered me, it was 34 pages, these 34 pages were titled the "Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008." I see the importance of a bill like this (Relating more to the mental health than to the addiction aspect of it). According to this insertion into the bailout plan, health care insurances must treat mental health and addictions equal to regular medical care. They cannot make payments higher and cannot offer stricter treatment limitations than to ordinary medical coverage. This does not belong in this bill, this is something that they knew would not be passed on it's own, therefore they shoved it into the bailout. So health care costs will now rise, because of addicts, that is how I see it.

We were in such "dire need" to pass this bill quickly otherwise we would go into a depression, this according to Congress and the President. Well they have taken a week longer than expected and nothing, we are still here. The bill passed the Senate, and the Dow is still down close to 300 points. Both Republicans and Democrats are wrong on passing this bill, and the pork shoved into it goes to show you, that maybe these are the wrong people to oversee and control the economy. These are the same people who got us into this mess. Chris Dodd and Barnie Frank are front and center on this bailout, yet they were the two leading the economy on this downward spiral. How can we expect THEM to fix this?

Update: I guess I missed one earlier, there is also a tax brake for people who ride their bicycles to work.