$9 Billion Loophole for Synthetic Fuel

Rondrin writes "CNN has an article detailing a $9 billion loophole in the tax code to spur synthetic fuel development. Unfortunately, spraying coal with pine tar qualifies. From the article: 'The wording is so bland and buried so deep within a 324-page budget document that almost no one would notice that a multibillion-dollar scam is going on. Not the members of Congress voting for it and certainly not the taxpayers who will get fleeced by it. And that is exactly the idea.'"

Re:Um

[TedCheshireAcad]

324 pages? Maybe if I made $165,200 per year and got free airfare back and forth from home to work....oh...wait...

Re:9 Billion over three years

[Anonymous Coward]

Phew - that's a relief, I knew there was no scam.

Whack-A-Politician

[amigabill]

I say we convince a congressman somewhere to sneak a small snippet into some must-pass law oen of these days. A snippet that would allow me once a year to show politicians what I think of their work by requiring each politician to allow me to smack them upside the head. And make a big shindig of it all, invite the press, hire a caterer, and of course all a tthe taxpayers' expense. This snippet of law would not allow anyone to back out of getting smacked. What a great way to spend one day a year, and it could be a heck of a party. National Politician Smacking Day, everybody gets off work to watch it on TV and everything.

Do you think they'd start actually reading what they vote for if something like this happened a few times?

Re:This ought to be good...

[Danny Rathjens]

"Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." -- George Carlin

Re:Whack-A-Politician

[rcw-home]

Hmmm, that wouldn't fly in court. The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment would require the law to be written so that the politicians have to allow everyone to smack them upside the head.

Re:Um

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, the US military has come a long way since the first Gulf War

Yeah, now they don't even need a reason anymore to invade countries.

Yay for them.

Re:Um

[infolib]

My uncle was in congress

So, how big a tax break did you get?

Direct democracy

[couch_warrior]

In the movie "Superman", Perry White, editor of the daily planet says -
"I want the name of this paper and Superman to go together like peanut butter and jelly, like politics and corruption...."

The problem is basically this - you have created an office that gives the holder permission to spend the peoples money that they exert no effort in earning. THEN you have created an election process that requires millions of dollars to be spent to achieve that position of authority. How many seconds does it take the average fool to figure out that you can use those "public funds" and give them to firms that will kick back a fraction of the proceeds as the legalized bribery that we call "campaign contributions".

Then you act surprised that federal spending is full of "gifts" to large companies. Sheesh - did you go to school on the short bus?

There is one good way to fix this -

A constitutional amendment that disempowers Congress and substitutes a direct democarcy. Every taxpayer - along with their federal tax return, gets to say where the money they are "contributing" gets spent. Congress would assemble a sales catalog of possible federal programs, and taxpayers would pick and choose how much to spend on each one. Taxpayers would also get to vote each year on raising or lowering the tax rates.

THAT would put some radical reform into the federal government!