Sunday, October 05, 2008

Blunt: "No pork" in $700 billion bailout

Seventh District Congressman Roy Blunt defended the $700 billion bailout during a campaign stop in Springfield Saturday, saying it contained "no pork." According to Chad Livengood's article in the Springfield News-Leader:

"I thought talk radio and a lot of people got way out of bounds on this issue by suggesting that somehow you've got $100 billion worth of pork," Blunt said.

The Springfield Republican said "it's not pork" because it relieves thousands of middle class residents in southwest Missouri of a tax increase next year from the alternative minimum tax, which was originally intended to target the rich.

"It's just an extension of good current tax policies," Blunt said, noting the bill extends tax relief to manufacturers and renewable energy producers.


Perhaps after a long enough time in Washington, politicians forget what pork is (and forget what good current tax poliices are, for that matter).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Blunt is correct. The AMT "Fix" in the bailout bill is good tax policy and not pork.

It's not clear what happened to the $7billion in park that was in the bill originally.