Senate Passes $108 Billion Tax Break Bill (And $700B Bailout)

Business-Politics

• The Senate last night voted 74 to 25 (40 Democrats, 34 Republicans) in favor of their adapted bailout package. (Only Senator Ted Kennedy did not vote.)

• Both presidential candidates voted for it, as did Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama hasn't voted since June; John McCain hasn't voted since April, and he has missed more than 64 percent of roll calls this Congress.

• That bill, which is 450 pages long and so none of us have read it, offers $150 billion in new tax breaks, postpones the "alternative minimum tax" that was to begin this year, and more than doubles FDIC bank account insurance, to $250,000. Also: a "$223 million package of tax benefits for fishermen and others whose livelihoods suffered as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill," and $33 million for "Corporations operating in American Samoa." God knows what else.

• Sarah Palin thinks that being gay is a "choice" and also that that choice is okay. Meanwhile, McCain finally gave an interview to a gay paper and was insanely noncommittal.

• Why was McCain campaigning in Iowa, a state he is going to lose?