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‘Stimulus” Has $8 Billion for Harry Reid’s Re-Election Campaign

How Much Pork Is Hidden in the Details?

By: Brian Faughnan (Diary)  |  February 12th, 2009 at 01:59 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

How much can you hide in a 1,434 page conference report? Quite a lot. According to Bloomberg, Congressional leaders managed to squeeze in a tax break of ‘up to $10 billion’ that General Motors has been looking for:

GM won a provision that will erase a tax liability of up to $10 billion that would have resulted from restructuring efforts, said Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat.

The bill also includes $8 billion for Harry Reid’s re-election effort a MagLev train from Southern California to Las Vegas:

In late-stage talks, Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pressed for $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines, quadrupling the amount in the bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday.

Reid’s office issued a statement noting that a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas rail might get a big chunk of the money.

The Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas maglev is competing with a privtely-funded diesel/electric train — one that Reid won’t be able to take credit for, and which won’t go all the way to Hollywood. If Harry Reid is going to stand a chance of getting re-elected, he’ll need to be able to point to plenty of concrete and steel with his name on the outside and your tax dollars on the inside.

Michelle Malkin got her hands on a copy of the final package and put it online. Another version of this agreement — which was ‘completed’ yesterday — will be available after 3:00pm. How much more will be added in that version? How many more versions will arrive before the vote? And most importantly, will the final version come before Congress approves it, or after?

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  • USNJIMRET

    (because you just don’t hear anyone saying “save” jobs anymore) that will make a purported high speed, no doubt “greener”, transportation system between SoCal and Sin City is now going to be funded, and owned, by the Government?
    And the jobs that would have been created by a privately funded enterprise will ALL go to the new effort?
    And, of course, the cost of the Government owned system will be less then the privately funded one, right?
    Man the Dem’s aren’t even trying to hide their vote buying schemes anymore, are they?

  • http://www.RedState.com/ETCartman Kenny Solomon

    Federal construction project.

    ALL workers must be union members.

    By the time this thing is ready for it’s first full-length test run, the invoice presented to America will be far above that.

    But don’t worry, LosVegLev won’ ever be built.

    Why is that, you ask ?

    It’s a simple one-word answer: Environmentalists.

    Which leads me to my next thought: How long before the environmentalist nutroots unionize ? ;)

  • nathanl

    How much was also included in this bill to bail out amtrak? about one billion is what I’m seeing after a quick google. I thought the idea of failed experiments was to show that that idea does not work, not to expand the project.

    • USNJIMRET
  • Praying

    of a job being saved. Harry Reid’s job. WE DON’T NEED HARRY REID! In fact, we NEED to get RID of Harry Reid. What a sad, sad joke. The country has truly died. In just 6 months, the U.S.A. has become the U.S.S.A (United Socialist States of America). I weep.