Politics | 10/02/2008 10:00 am
Your Tax Money at Work: Here Are 5 of the Crazier 'Pork' Elements of the $700B Bailout Bill

The more than $700-billion economic package passed by the Senate last night was chock full of odd tax incentives and other pork spending that has many up in arms today.
It’s being reported that senators had to load up the package – that is critical to the survival of Wall Street, and possibly the entire American economy – in order to make it more politically acceptable to those opposed to it.
Here are five of the more outlandish things your taxpayer money is tagged to be spent on in this 451-page bill:
1. $19 million to cover excise taxes for rum brought into the U.S. from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; $33 milion for corporations operating in American Samoa.
2. $6 million to pay for a repeal of a 39-cent excise tax for wooden arrows designed for use by children. The tax "shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all-natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft …" Seriously. That one was aimed to save arrow manufacturers, like those in Oregon, about $200,000 a year.
3. $128 million for auto race tracks.
4. $223 million in tax benefits for fishermen and others whose livelihoods suffered as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
5. The "Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief" section includes: deductions for teacher expenses; additional standard deduction for real property taxes for non-itemizers; Indian employment credit; accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations; railroad track maintenance; seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility; enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions; tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia; extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products, wool research fund, wool duty refunds.
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