Today's American Politics a 'Tiresome Farce'

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President Barack Obama winks as he arrives to announce the passage of the bill that kept the country from falling off the fiscal cliff late on Tuesday.Zoom
AP

President Barack Obama winks as he arrives to announce the passage of the bill that kept the country from falling off the fiscal cliff late on Tuesday.

Barack Obama's announcement that a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" has been reached was hailed as a victory for the Democratic president. German editorialists, however, are less certain. They warn that the bitter political wrangling in Washingon is likely to damage the country in the long term.

Read all @ German Press Slams Fiscal Cliff Negotiations in Washington - SPIEGEL ONLINE

 

[there4eyeM]

Very tiresome!

 

[waltky]

Pork and earmarks for special interest groups...

'Fiscal cliff' bill filled with 'pork'
Wednesday, January 2, 2013 - Stuffed with corporate and individual tax breaks for special interests

The rancorously debated "fiscal cliff" bill approved by Congress this week was supposed to be a straightforward way for the country to avert disaster, mostly by raising taxes on the wealthy. But the 150-plus-page compromise legislation that passed the House and Senate is stuffed with corporate and individual tax breaks that have nothing to do with averting a fiscal dive. Inside it are billions of dollars in tax breaks for everyone from racetrack owners to Hollywood producers to California's alternative energy industry.

The recipients are, as the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation put it Wednesday, "the sort of taxpayers who can spend millions on lobbyists and whose PACs (political action committees) and employees can give millions more to the campaigns of lawmakers." Many of these tax breaks are frequently tacked on to unrelated, end-of-the-session legislation that must pass. Many would have died lonely legislative deaths if forced to a vote on their own merits, analysts said.

In the fiscal bill, they also served a raw political purpose as sweeteners - "a spoonful of sugar to help the legislative medicine go down," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog. "This is log-rolling at its best. "Certainly they are pork to somebody," Ellis said. "There's a reason why they're here. There is somebody behind them wanting to keep them alive."

Owners of motor sports tracks, thanks to heavy lobbying from NASCAR, caught an estimated $46 million tax break in 2013 by being able to write off the cost of their facilities over seven years instead of several times that long. Supporters of the break included Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.

A break in Hollywood

See also:

GOP Congressman: Cliff Deal Example of How ‘We Buy Votes with Debt’
January 2, 2013 – The deal to avert the fiscal cliff which consists of special tax credits for green energy, Hollywood, distilleries and other industries, is a demonstration of Capitol Hill vote buying, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said Wednesday.

The 154-page bill that passed the Senate and House on New Year’s Day to stop the tax hikes and spending cuts in the fiscal cliff contained 12 specific credits for green energy and 31 additional credits for various businesses, while increasing taxes on those earning more than $400,000. “The bill turned out to be over 100 pages long. It actually has 96 different provisions in it,” Mulvaney said on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. “The ones that we found for example are the continued tax credits for example for wind energy. There are tax credits for Hollywood. There are tax credits for, I think, it’s rum manufacturers. “It’s almost as if you could see this list of the senators walking up and down the aisle of the senators on New Year’s Eve and say ‘what do you need in this bill to get you to vote yes on it?’” Mulvaney continued. “That’s what it looks like. There are tax giveaways. Are they a lot of money? No. Are they indicative of how Washington has always compromised? Yes. We buy votes. We buy votes with debt.”

A rum excise, found is Section 329 of the bill, is extended another year, to Jan. 1, 2014. The Washington Post reports the revenue stream is used to support the rum industries in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by taxing rum imported into the United States $13.50 per gallon. In fiscal year 2009, the rum tax raised $547 million for the rum industries in the two U.S. territories, according to the Post. The Hollywood handout he referred to comes in Section 316 of the legislation, called the “Extension of Special Expensing Rules for Certain Film and Television Production.” The Washington Post reported that provision withheld $75 million in revenue by allowing motion picture studios to deduct up to $15 million of their costs if more than three fourths of the moves productions take place in the United States, or $20 million if the movie is produced in a low income area.

Sections 401 through 412 are the green energy tax credits. These include a credit for two to three wheel electric plug-in vehicles, credit for alternative fuel vehicle refueling vehicles, extended credits for biodiesel and renewable diesel and an extension of credits for energy efficient new homes.

The White House made the green energy tax cuts a central part of a press release Tuesday. “The agreement extends tax relief for businesses through the end of next year,” the White House release said. “This means extending the Production Tax Credit, a key incentive for renewable energy that many Republicans had been trying to end, as well as the Research & Experimentation tax credit. In addition, the agreement extends 50 percent bonus depreciation, a cost-effective temporary measure to support investment and growth. All of these would be extended through the end of 2013.” Another example from the bill that has garnered attention was the extension of a tax credit for building race tracks is in Section 312 of the legislation.

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