House should again say no

Wafting from the vicinity of the Beltway is the acrid stench of fresh pork, which in the business of news is known as dogs biting men, which is to say not surprising. But there is a fouler air about the 450-page pile of legislation purportedly written to rescue an American economy in flames and hurtling earthward. It assaults the senses, olfactory and intellectual.

The $850-billion bundle of fatuity sent by the Senate to the House, which is scheduled to respond with a vote today, assures us of two things: either the looming calamity that our elected kings have brandished like an assault weapon before the quivering American masses is utter farce, or those whom the people have entrusted to lead them possess the moral sensibilities of Huns. In either event, dethronement is in order.

Shoveled into the Senate bailout trough we find:

n $192 million in excise tax refunds for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for the production of rum. Taxpayers will need to imbibe plenty of the hard stuff to swallow this provision.

n $478 million in tax deductions over 10 years to prod Hollywood production companies to film in the U.S. rather than abroad. Producers can use the savings to pay Brad Pitt for his next appearance.

n $6 million to provide tax exemptions on the production of a particular type of children’s wooden arrows. Similar provisions might have been considered for pitchforks, since taxpayers might lead a run on this suddenly useful farm tool.

n $100 million to cover seven-year recovery periods on the costs of building auto racetracks. Here, logic crashes into the wall. Again.

n $10 million for employers to provide benefits for employees who ride bicycles to work. The wheels of Senate wantonness keep on turning.

There is more, not all of it despicable. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which lawmakers should cast onto the trash heap, would be repealed for a year. Especially appealing, the bill allows the Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend what is known as mark-to-market accounting, which financial insiders say has turned an artificial crisis into a real one. The rule requires that assets be valued at market price rather than the price paid by the buyer, a problem in times like these, when markets are plunging. Research-and-development tax credits included in the bill should help kick life back into the economy.

But what of reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that own more than half of all mortgage paper in the United States? At the behest of Democratic charlatans such as Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Fannie and Freddie doled out loans like candy to people who could not afford to pay, precipitating the mortgage collapse. That Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a leading recipient of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions, emerged as an architect of the Senate bill should serve as an immediate indictment, even without a reading of the fine print.

House Republicans – including Bob Goodlatte, of the Sixth District – and a strong contingent of Democrats showed a rare stiffening of spine in rejecting an initial version of the bailout bill. Today, the chamber gets what their willow-kneed colleagues in the Senate consider to be a second chance to do right by America. We urge our representatives to do just that and reject the Senate boondoggle.

Federal money to save the financial markets and unfreeze credit might well be needed. But now is no time to snatch more earmark money from the pockets of the people. Lawmakers who think differently might soon feel the bite of taxpayers whose nostrils can bear the stench no longer.