Thanks to Mike at C&F for taking the lead in all things cynical with the omnipresent fiscal crisis.  As no doubt everyone has heard, our United States Senate has stepped in to save our financial system from the amorphous crisis that would devastate “Main Street” as it bails out “Wall Street” by a vote of 74 to 25.  Take that, you rogue representatives.  Hah!

But one doesn’t achieve bipartisanship cheap these days.  In order to save us from disaster, apparently not a sufficiently worthy goal in itself, the Senate did what it does best.

The bailout bill contains the following “new” pork:

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  Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
  

  Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
  

  6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)

The bailout bill extends this existing pork:

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  Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
  

  American Samoa (Sec. 309)
  

  Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
  

  Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
  

  Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
  

  Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
  

  Railroads (Sec. 316)
  

  Auto Racing Tracks (317)
  

  District of Columbia  (Sec. 322)
  

  Wool Research (Sec. 325)

Here’s the bill (intended as a pun, if you will), for the restoration of order to our financial markets, certainly a primary concern of all right-thinking Americans today.  According to the Kansas City Star, it’s an additional $110 billion.  And that’s without the tip.

So as hard as I try, and I promise that I try very, very hard, it’s really difficult to buy in to this crisis.  Sure, I will be paying the freight together with everyone else, yet again despite the fact that it doesn’t reflect my concerns, but after paying the costs of a war in Iraq, shelling out a little more to cover the cost of someone else’s deep abiding fiscal concerns hardly seems consequential. 

But after the many interests raised in the process of devising a solution to Hank Paulson’s crisis, the innumerable editorials and speeches about who made out like a bandit and who got screwed, about who gets saved and how we’re once again counting on trickle down economics to explain why anybody on Main Street should care whether liquidity of financial institutions is really important to homeless people, our Senate has given us a darn good smack in the face.

We got punked.  They’re handing out cash like candy, and there’s none of it for us.  That’s because they don’t need to pay us off, since they’ve got us by the short hairs with all the fear-mongering and disaster talk.  After all, IF the crisis came, and they didn’t act to prevent it, then it would be OUR fault for stopping the brilliant leaders of our nation from saving the dopey citizens who just didn’t “get it.” 

I’ve been told more than a few times that I just don’t “get it” by some very smart people.  When I disagree, they make fun of me for “ignoring the facts.” I don’t mind being wrong.  It happens.  But when the nervous-Nellies start denigrating anyone who doesn’t succumb to their vision, there’s nothing to do but shrug and move on.  Sticks and stones.  After all, there’s comfort in jumping on the disaster band-wagon.

But now that you see the price of a bailout, an additional $110 billion in pork to persuade our Senators to vote the right way, are you proud of yourselves?  Do you still want to argue that only you see the facts, and anyone who disagrees is just a visceral reactionary?

America has been played by fear too many times in the past.  Our government’s reaction/use of fear to pass some of the worst, most dangerous laws that would otherwise have caused widespread outrage, come in times of hysteria.  Thanks, Senate, for reminding us of the price.