H.R. 1424 [PDF][HTML], page 300:

SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

(a) In General- Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by redesignating subparagraph (B) as subparagraph (C) and by inserting after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph:

• • `(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROW SHAFTS- Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold separately or incorporated as part of a finished or unfinished product) of a type used in the manufacture of any arrow which after its assembly–

• • • `(i) measures 5/16 of an inch or less in diameter, and

• • • `(ii) is not suitable for use with a bow described in paragraph (1)(A).’.

(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by this section shall apply to shafts first sold after the date of enactment of this Act.

That’s not all… just perhaps the most ludicrous. The New York Post gives us more:

WASHINGTON - Here, little piggies!

Congressional deal-brookers yesterday slopped a mess of pork into the $700 billion financial rescue bill passed by the Senate last night - including a tax break for makers of kids’ wooden arrows - in a bid to lure reluctant lawmakers into voting for the package

Stuffed into the 451- page bill are more than $1.7 billion worth of targeted tax breaks to be doled out for a sty full of eyebrow-raising purposes over the next decade.

“This is how Washington works,” said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington research group. “A big pot of pork is their recipe for final passage.”

The special provisions include tax breaks for:

• Manufacturers of kids’ wooden arrows - $6 million.
• Puerto Rican and Virgin Is- lands rum producers - $192 million.
• Wool research.
• Auto-racing tracks - $128 million.
• Corporations operating in American Samoa - $33 million.
• Small- to medium-budget film and television productions - $10 million.

Another measure inserted into the bill appears to be a bald-faced bid aimed at winning the support of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who voted against the original version when it went down in flames in the House on Monday.

That provision - a $223 million package of tax benefits for fishermen and others whose livelihoods suffered as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill - has been the subject of fervent lobbying by Alaska’s congressional delegation.

I’ve got nothing…

Not too surprising given Ludwig von Drake was supposedly named after Ludwig von Mises.

Perhaps some at Disney are Austrians.

I remember that episode when I was a kid.

I got in without any issues. Didn’t even need my FTL ID. The press packet had this as I walked in to the press room. I’m not seeing the release online.

KENNEDY AND HATCH RENEW CALL FOR NATIONAL SERVICE: “SERVE AMERICA ACT” WILL INCREASE OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE FOR AMERICANS OF ALL AGES

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tomorrow, Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) will introduce new legislation, the “Serve America Act,” to expand opportunities for service for all Americans. The Legislation will ask 175,000 more Americans to give a year to service to address specific national challenges, thereby expanding the number of national service participants to 250,000. The legislation will also increase opportunities for individuals to serve at every stage of their life and will support nonprofit organizations and social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions to our most pressing problems.

“Time and again we’ve learned that large numbers of Americans are ready, willing, able, and even eager to be involved in service, and that all we have to do is ask them to do so. The Serve America Act will ask. It will connect every generation through service, and enable them to help tackle a wide range of national challenges, from the dropout crisis that plagues our schools to the lack of health care in our neediest communities to the energy and environmental crises that threatens our planet,” said Senator Kennedy, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversees existing national and community service programs. “Many Americans are already answering the call to such service, by weatherizing homes, mentoring students, or working to bring clean water and life-saving vaccines to peoples in many lands. This legislation will dramatically expand opportunities for Americans will to devote a year or more to address such challenges. It will draw the talents and skills of every age group, such as expanding opportunities for young people to improve their communities, and enabling retiring ‘baby boomers’ to transition to second careers in public service.”

Senator Hatch said, “Volunteer service is the lifeblood of our republic. It brings out the best in people and strengthens our communities. Throughout history, Americans have stepped forward and volunteered to meet every challenge. Within each of us is a desire to help and serve our neighbors the world over; and yet, the hectic lifestyle we all live often crowds out our natural ability to give service. That is why my longtime friend, Senator Kennedy, and I are introducing the Serve America Act. This historic legislation will inspire and provide opportunities for civic-minded Americans to raise the bar of service and fulfill the destiny of the immortal words of ‘America the Beautiful,’ to ‘more than self their country love. And mercy more than life!’”

“America faces more challenges today than ever before. And new challenges require a new level of commitment. By harnessing the talents and efforts of the American people, faith-based groups and nonprofit organizations, we can empower more people, improve more communities and tackle more of our nation’s greatest challenges. That is precisely the intent of this bill, and I’m pleased to be working alongside Senator Kennedy to champion this important legislation.

Read More…

Unless We Start Busing Kids to Mars…

We’ve all been told that school districts around the country are feeling the pinch from higher fuel costs. What’s never mentioned is that districts are supposedly suffering budget crunches despite spending more than twice as much – in real, inflation-adjusted dollars – as they did in 1970.

According to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, districts spent an average of $5,247 per pupil in 1970 (in 2008 dollars). Today, the average is about $12,000. How is it possible that districts could have trouble covering higher gas prices when they have an extra $6,500 to spend per pupil? One reason is that the public school bureaucracy has been doing what bureaucracies do best: growing. Since 1970, total public school employment has nearly doubled to over 6.1 million people, while total enrollment has increased by less than 9 percent. It is to support this army of new public school employees that taxpayers are being asked for more and more funding each year. If the public schools were to return to the student/staff ratio they had in 1970, they would have an extra $100 billion per year with which to fill the tanks of the nation’s school buses. And unless we start busing kids to Mars, that should probably cover it.

Of course, taxpayers might be willing to foot this lavish bill if the smaller class sizes and larger bureaucracies of recent years had led to improved student outcomes. They haven’t. Students at the end of high school score no better in reading and math today than they did in 1970, according to the Long Term Trends tests administered as part of the National Assessment of Education Progress. In science, their scores today are lower.

School District Budgets

I was surprised to hear on NPR this morning that a public school in Washington, DC was renovated to the tune of $65 million. So I checked to see what the annual budget for the DC school district is ($773 million) and found this:

With 23 schools slated to close starting next school year, monies allocated for schools increased to $537 million from $493 million in FY ’08.

Economic realities be damned, the prison education industrial complex must grow.

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/…

Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma didn’t come to Washington, D.C. to grow the government.

A long time critic of federal spending and power, he has made prolific use of “holds” to prevent legislation he doesn’t like from moving forward.

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reached his wit’s end. He has cobbled together into one bill a long list of measures that Coburn has been working to slow or stop. He’s hoping to roll over Senator Coburn and move them all forward. The bill is S. 3297, the Advancing America’s Priorities Act. But the nickname it has gotten is the “Coburn Omnibus.”

Majority Leader Reid is expected to try to bring the bill to the Senate floor later this week.

We have done our best to figure out which bills have been rolled into the Coburn Omnibus, using a copy of the bill he posted on his Web site. Thirty-six bills are listed below. The last would authorize the construction of a greenhouse in Suitland, Maryland.

Coburn has reportedly said the bills in the Coburn Omnibus would create 77 new federal programs. By our count, passage of the Coburn Omnibus would spend just under $65 per U.S. family, though six of the bills do not have cost estimates.

HEALTHCARE PROVISIONS

• S. 1382, the ALS Registry Act - $0.62
• S. 1183, the Christoper and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act - $0.85
• S. 999, the Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act
• H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act - $0.16
• S. 1117, the Vision Care for Kids Act of 2008
• S. 1810, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act - $0.17

JUDICIARY PROVISIONS

• H.R. 5524, the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act of 2008
• S. 535, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act of 2007 - $0.58
• S. 2304, the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2008 - $4.34
• H.R. 4120, the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007
• H.R. 4136, the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act of 2007
• S. 1210, the Drug Endangered Children Act of 2007 - $0.18
• S. 1079, the Star-Spangled Banner and War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission Act - $0.03
• S. 1738, the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008 (Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007) - $4.93

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS PROVSIONS

• H.R. 2964, the Captive Primate Safety Act - $0.15
• S. 2707, the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Continuing Authorization Act - $0.04
• S. 2844, the Beach Protection Act of 2008 - $2.56
• S. 496, the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008

FOREIGN RELATIONS PROVISIONS

• H.R. 1469, the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2008 - $3.76
• H.R. 1084, the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 2008 - $5.75
• H.R. 2798, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation Reauthorization of Act of 2008 - $0.66
• S. 2020, the Tropical Forest and Coral Conservation Reauthorization Act of 2008 - $0.65
• H.R. 1678, the Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act of 2008 - $0.93
• H.R. 3320, the Support for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Act of 2008 - $0.05

COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION PROVISIONS

• S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act - $1.85
• S. 675, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2007 - $0.62
• H.R. 3352, the Hydrographic Services Improvement Act Amendments of 2008 - $5.92
• H.R. 1834, the NOAA Undersea Research Program Act of 2008 (National Ocean Exploration Program Act) - $2.36
• H.R. 2400, the Ocean and Coastal Mapping Integration Act - $1.03
• H.R. 5618, the National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2008 - $2.69
• S. 950, the Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act of 2008 - $6.36
• H.R. 4174, the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2008 - $0.70

HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS PROVISIONS

• S. 1446, the National Capital Transportation Amendments Act of 2008 - $10.40
• H.R. 390, the Preservation of Records of Servitude, Emancipation, and Post-Civil War Reconstruction Act - $0.12
• S. 3175, the Predisaster Hazard Mitigation Act of 2008 - $6.18

RULES AND ADMINISTRATION PROVISIONS

• H.R. 5492, To authorize the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to construct a greenhouse facility at its museum support facility in Suitland, Maryland, and for other purposes - $0.02

And does anyone believe those who will vote for this monstrosity actually read it? That they could possibly justify even 70% of it constitutionally? After they pull shit like this how could anyone not support DownsizeDC.org’s “One Subject at a Time Act?”

http://www.themonitor.com/…

Preparations for Tropical Storm Dolly include plans by the federal government for thousands of illegal immigrants in custody at the detention center.

But U.S. Border Patrol agents at the Sarita checkpoint will not stop motorists evacuating from a hurricane, an official said Monday.

“We’re not going to be stopping people and asking where they’re from,” said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Washington, D.C. “We don’t want to slow the evacuation process. Life is paramount at this point.”

Isn’t that nice of them. Tom from New Hampshire on last night’s FTL said that representitive Ciro Rodriguez, who was on a plane with Ron Paul which had to make an emergency landing yesterday in New Orleans, said that people evacuating should bring identification just to be sure. Never know when the thugs will change their minds.

In other news, the police state wants to make it easier for you to be harassed.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/…

TSA asked luggage makers to come up with prototype designs that will make it easier to view a laptop in the X-ray machines, basically by building in a place to store the laptop in a back or front compartment where there are no straps, pockets, zippers etc. Cables and chargers would have to be stored in side pouches.

“We’re looking to see what works in terms of fewer obstructions in the bag itself that often mask what’s really in it,” said Dwayne Baird, a TSA spokesman in Seattle. “One of the biggest things we hear is people saying, ‘we’re tired of pulling out our laptops.”‘

TSA says not having to remove laptops would speed up security lines and reduce the number of claims it gets for computers damaged during screening.

One manufacturer says it hopes to have a bag ready by this fall that will meet TSA’s specifications. Tustin, Calif.-based Pathfinder Luggage will begin producing a rolling style briefcase (14 x 8 x 17 inches) with wheels and separate zippered compartments that would retail for around $100.

The laptop changes would follow on the TSA’s new “Black Diamond” program that calls for passengers to segregate themselves into color-coded security lines based on their traveling expertise.

In place at one security check point at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, it calls for travelers to voluntarily go to different lanes — black for “experts,” meaning frequent fliers who pack light, know the security drill and won’t hold up the line; blue for “casual travelers” who fly just a few times a year and may not be familiar with all the new rules; and green for families with children or others needing special help.

Nice to know the criminals want to make the victim as comfortable as possible. They wouldn’t be able to continue if they started getting all uppity.