Word: congressmen
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Late last month, two Senators and three Congressmen sent a two-page, single-spaced letter with 10 questions to the IRS asking for direction in resolving a series of important questions regarding Madoff and Ponzis, such as whether there will be special extensions for victims. The letter also suggested setting up a special "Madoff unit" to process claims. (Read more about Ponzi schemes...
...Earmarks," specific spending items inserted into law by individual congressmen, are often conflated with "pork." In fact, "pork" is often defined as earmarked spending. And sure, many of the controversial earmarks in the current budget bill do sound porky, like $332,500 for a school sidewalk in Franklin, Texas, or $75,000 for a Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia. McCain has twittered snide comments about $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics ("quick peel me a grape"), $209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in Georgia, $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa. But those earmarks...
...true, as McCain pointed out during his unsuccessful effort to delete all the earmarks in the spending bill, that earmark abuses have landed politicians like former Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham in prison. Those abuses were especially rampant when congressmen were permitted to slip earmarks into legislation without taking responsibility - non-earmarked earmarks, in a way - but Obama helped spearhead an effort to eliminate that practice after Democrats took back Congress. It is also true that earmarks can be a sneaky way for boondoggles to bypass hearings, public comment periods, cost-benefit analyses and other forms of scrutiny...
...Politicians have every reason to want to see print media fail. That can be said tongue in cheek, but too many governors and congressmen have lost jobs after newspaper investigations to make the relationship between Fourth Estate and politicians a comfortable one. A neutered press would benefit a number of elected officials. That may be reason enough for them to stay away from providing newspaper and magazines with financial aid. The other obvious reason the government may be against putting capital into media companies is that it could give the appearance of politicians "buying" better treatment by the press. Since...
...public is in a panic about economic conditions doesn’t mean that Republicans will easily sign on to remedies that cost unfathomable amounts of money. The October bailout package, indisputably and critically necessary, was opposed by a solid majority of Americans and by a majority of Republican congressmen even though it was being proposed by a Republican president. As a Republican senator vividly observed, if you gave someone a million dollars every day since the birth of Christ, you wouldn’t reach a trillion dollars until sometime after the year 2700. A stimulus package priced somewhere...