Excuse Me For Kickin

What's in the Senate EESA Bill that passed?

The core of Mr. Bush's rescue plan survives in the Senate bill. The measure authorizes Treasury to borrow $700 billion to buy up tainted mortgages, securities and other financial instruments that have weakened the financial system and frozen credit markets.

The bill also reaffirms the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to suspend so-called mark-to-market accounting.

$150.5 billion package of unrelated personal and corporate tax cuts.

-The 10-year, $150.5 billion package of tax proposals includes a measure to ease the bite of the alternative minimum tax, as well as research-and-development tax credits coveted by high-tech companies and drug makers

Increase in bank deposit insurance limits

The move to raise deposit insurance offered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to $250,000 from $100,000 adds billions of dollars of new liabilities to the federal government. As part of the bill, the FDIC earned expanded authority to borrow taxpayer dollars to back the higher coverage.

The agency's deposit insurance fund is already at historically low levels. It now has a $30 billion line of credit with Treasury.

Through 2009, the bill would permit the FDIC to request unlimited amounts to cover losses related to the higher limits.

Extensions of the AMT patch, tax deductions on state and local sales taxes, tuition, teacher expenses and real property taxes and tax credits for business research and new market investors

Energy tax credits and incentives to encourage wind and refined coal production, new biomass facilities, wave and tide electricity generators, solar energy property improvements, CO2 capturing, plug-in electric drive vehicles, idling reduction units on truck engines, cellulosic biofuels ethanol production, energy efficient houses, offices, dishwashers, clothes washers and refrigerators, and fringe benefits for employees commuting by bicycle.

A requirement for private insurance plans to offer mental health benefits on par with medical-surgical benefits

Tax relief provisions for victims of this summer's Midwestern floods, and Hurricane Ike

Freezing of deductions for sale and exchange of oil and natural gas, mandatory basis reporting by brokers for transactions involving publicly traded securities and an extension of the oil spill tax

Economic development credit to American Samoan businesses

$10,000 tax credit for training of mine rescue team members

50% immediate expensing for extra underground mine safety equipment

Tax credit for businesses with employees from an Indian reservation

Accelerated depreciation for property used mostly on an Indian reservation

50% tax credit for some expenditures on maintaining railroad tracks

7-year recovery period for motorsports racetrack property

Expensing of cleaning up "brownfield" contaminated sites

Enhanced deductions for businesses donating computers and books to schools, and for food donations

Deduction for income from domestic production in Puerto Rico

Tax credit for employees in Hurricane Katrina disaster area

Tax incentives for investments in poor neighborhoods in D.C.

Increased rehabilitation credit for buildings in Gulf area

Reduction of import duties on some imported wool fabrics, transfers other duties to Wool Trust Fund to promote competitiveness of American wool
Special expensing rules for film and TV productions

Increasing cover of rum excise tax revenues to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

Making it easier for film and TV companies to use deduction for domestic production.
(Our note: So they can make more anti-American programs. Lovely)

Exempting children's wooden arrows from excise tax
(Our note: We can all sleep better at night knowing this has been added. /sarcasm)

Income averaging for Exxon Valdez litigants for tax purposes

All of this information was gathered from WSJ.

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Taking a couple of Motrins or Tylenols won't help you recover from reading all the extra expenditures included in this bill. Nor will it help you feel better that our country is no longer at the front door waiting for socialism---we're already through the door.