Friday, October 03, 2008


PIGGY POLS IN HOG HEAVEN WITH PORK-PACKED PACT Here, little piggies! Congressional deal-brookers yesterday slopped a mess of pork into the $700 billion financial rescue bill passed by the Senate last night - including a tax break for makers of kids' wooden arrows - in a bid to lure reluctant lawmakers into voting for the package. Stuffed into the 451- page bill are more than $1.7 billion worth of targeted tax breaks to be doled out for a sty full of eyebrow-raising purposes over the next decade. "This is how Washington works," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington research group. "A big pot of pork is their recipe for final passage." The special provisions include tax breaks for: * Manufacturers of kids' wooden arrows - $6 million. * Puerto Rican and Virgin Is- lands rum producers - $192 million. * Wool research. * Auto-racing tracks - $128 million. * Corporations operating in American Samoa - $33 million. * Small- to medium-budget film and television productions - $10 million. Another measure inserted into the bill appears to be a bald-faced bid aimed at winning the support of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who voted against the original version when it went down in flames in the House on Monday. That provision - a $223 million package of tax benefits for fishermen and others whose livelihoods suffered as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill - has been the subject of fervent lobbying by Alaska's congressional delegation....

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