Lincoln Memorial – Lincoln & His Right Hand – 9-30-08
by brian.mosley
Better known as the Bailout. That’s right, folks, it’s really just a Senate Amendment to HR 1424, whose purpose is: “To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment, and for other purposes.”
Get all that?
Yeah, me neither
But really, it’s the bailout bill.
Or something.
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
They hollowed-out an existing bill that had gone through certain hoops already because otherwise they’d have to potentially contend with dissenters putting holds on an actual new bill. It’s a procedural end-run, and you can find some explanation of it if you look around; I think Pearlstein explained it a little in a recent business column.
All we can hope for now is that the House continues to show just barely enough sense to keep resisting this turd. Hopefully they didn’t add enough deck chairs to the Titanic (FDIC guarantee increase? Really? It’s already a guarantee per account so it’s not like it’s not already possible to shield an infinite amount – you just have to create more accounts) to convince the holdouts that they can vote for it.
The reason the bailout didn’t pass the first time was because of the amendments and such added to it. It’s possible the plan itself would’ve been just fine and that the House actually DID read it (gasp!) from beginning to end. Our theory at work was that it was the capital gains tax issue, but admittedly we’re distracted by putting out fires with every decision made (or not made) on Capitol Hill this week.
What does a rider really mean on a 700 billion dollar bailout? Are we missing the huge elephant in the room?
Jonathan,
The rider IS the bailout. Because the Senate lacks the power of the purse, in order to get the ball rolling on the bailout, they had to hollow out an existing house bill, and stuff it full of the bailout.
It’s a parliamentary end around.
Strike “rider”, replace with “amendment”. And get me some coffee – I must be less awake than I thought.