Bloomberg describes an unlikely beneficiary of taxpayer TARP money: a British distillery. Diageo Plc. The story of how a British liquor company got paid $2.7 billion to build a distillery in the Virgin Islands is a convoluted one. Like most things in Washington, it had history. But before getting to that, here’s happened in a nutshell. The measure was stampeded through when panic over the financial crisis (=opportunity) was at its height. (Hat tip: Crooks and Liars)
June 26 (Bloomberg) — In June 2008, U.S. Virgin Islands Governor John deJongh Jr. agreed to give London-based Diageo Plc billions of dollars in tax incentives to move its production of Captain Morgan rum from one U.S. island — Puerto Rico — to another, namely St. Croix. DeJongh says he had no idea his deal would help make the world’s largest liquor distiller the most unlikely beneficiary of the emergency Troubled Asset Relief Program approved by Congress just four months later. …
“It’s kind of like the magician’s sleight of hand,” says former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman William Thomas, a California Republican who ran the committee from 2001 to 2007 and oversaw all tax legislation. “They snuck these things in a bill that was focused on other things.”
Congress inserted the tax benefits for companies other than banks in a fog of confusion and panic after the House of Representatives rejected the first attempt to fund the bank support effort urged by then President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. …
“You had this remarkable brief period with no transparency, filled with backroom deals being made and an absolute blackout of information,” says Jim Lucier, a senior political analyst at Capital Alpha Partners LLC, a Washington firm that tracks legislation for hedge funds and institutional investors.
Referring to TARP tax breaks, he says, “It’s ridiculous and it’s a product of the legislative sausage-making machine.”
Now back to the history of the legislative sausage.
It began with the passage of what was advertised as a tax break. What nobody realized is that one of the provisions tacked on to the tax break extended a policy under which Diageo Plc stood to gain billions. “Baucus didn’t know until months later, Sullivan says, that one of those added provisions would steer about $2.7 billion to Diageo over the next three decades. That’s because Diageo wasn’t even mentioned in the bill and lawmakers didn’t realize they were ratifying deJongh’s deal by extending the underlying tax policy that made the agreement possible in the first place.” These kinds of shennanigans make one wonder what is actually inside the “energy reform bill” that House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio tried to filibuster when a 300 page amendment to it was introduced at 3 am.
Republicans have complained that no copies of the massive bill exist for members to read on the House floor, though the legislation is available online. “I really hate to do this, but when you file a 300 page amendment at 3:05 a.m. the American people have a right to know what is in the bill, they have a right to know what we are voting on.” Among the provisions Boehner reads from the bill, the creation of “green banking centers” that would have to provide information to people about how to build green homes and a government formula, or rating system, to measure how well builders adhere to environmentally friendly standards.
Well who cares what’s in it? The right question is what’s in it for who. Amazing how the addition of two words can change a sentence. But as in all things, the energy reform bill mysteries be clear eventually a day late and many dollars short. Then we can all move on and get along.
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49 Comments
1. Jay:The DC political class are a bunch of legal criminals.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:56 am 2. Lifeofthemind:It can drive a man to drink.
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:06 am 3. Dave the Kapampangan:Politics has always been a “what’s in it for who” game; that is just its nature. The mentality of “divvying up the spoils” is the reason why government should be limited– government only redistributes and rarely produces (i.e. government votes itself fat pensions and benefits, and when the money runs out, it cuts the constituents’ services and keeps its own benefits, whether you are talking about funding public education, taking over GM, or the State of California).
The worrisome part of this story is the part where Congressional idiots start rubber stamping things without bothering to look at them. Not a good trend.
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:28 am 4. RWE:Then there is “Mix and Scoot” a subsidy for mixing alcohol with petroleum-based fuels. Tankers pull into a US port from overseas, get some alcohol mixed with the foreign diesel fuel they are carrying, grab the tax subsidy and then scoot on over to Europe to sell the fuel, where they get a better price.
And check out opinionjournal.com today on the Black Liquor debacle, in which that same provision is enabling US paper companies to rake in billions in credits for mixing diesel fuel with the alcohol they were making anyway. And which has also started a paper products trade war with Canada.
Incompetence is Wash DC’s main product; confusion is just a hobby.
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:41 am 5. Doug:Speaking of TARP,
Sanford resisted the TARP,
but he could not resist the TART.
—
Meanwhile, back @the Ranch:
—
N. Korea criticizes U.S. missile defense for Hawaii
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea criticized the U.S. on Monday for positioning missile defense systems around Hawai’i, calling the deployment part of a plot to attack the regime and saying it would bolster its nuclear arsenal in retaliation.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he ordered the deployment of a ground-based, mobile missile intercept system and radar system to Hawai’i amid concerns the North may fire a long-range missile toward the islands, about 4,500 miles away.
“Through the U.S. forces’ clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the U.S. attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.
The paper also accused the U.S. of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove “the U.S. pre-emptive nuclear war” on the North is imminent.
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:59 am 6. Doug:I think RWE informed Kim of our secret nuclear-powered aircraft.
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:01 am 7. aaron:I once worked as a subcontractor on a gig that involved a distillery in the USVI. At the time the US treasury was kicking back 80 million dollars a year to the island government, (2/3 of it’s operating capital!) just because there was a distillery there already, through a Carribean Basin hurricane recovery bill.
I see they’ve upgraded.
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:04 am 8. aaron:by the way they make very good rum in St Croix
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:06 am 9. Urban B:Wrechard: (Or whoever might know…) When I heard the news that no physical (or virtual) copy of the energy bill (‘bill’ as defined by a final copy) existed at the time of the vote, is there a Constitutional issue here? The Constitutional does not define a bill, therefore that would fall to the rules of the House. Do the rules define a bill? Aside for the common sense hurdles to voting for something that doesn’t exist, did the House break the law?
My instincts say no, because there are often bills that lack specifics, to be determined later by the Executive. However, even in those cases, a text exists. Is the Congress allowed to vote for a text that doesn’t exist? Furthermore, who safeguards the bill? If it’s passed before completion, who is to say it wasn’t still being written and changed after its passing?
Again, given the conference committee process and so forth, does any of this even matter? Let us say, for argument’s sake, the House can pass nothing but an idea? Does anyone even care?
Anyone? Helloooo?
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:38 am 10. bob:Work is the curse of the drinking class.
Supreme Court Has Overuled Sotomayor In Firefighters Case
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:40 am 11. RWE:I have a 1960’s vintage Hawk model kit of a nuclear powered bomber, the AB-1 or something like that. Maybe Kim saw one of those on ebay.
Totally cool. Worth building in full scale even if it did not work, just based on looks alone.
And it had two cool looking parasite fighters it carried for self-defense.
Then there was Idi Amin’s accusation that the Israeli commandoes in the Raid on Entebbe used “nuclear nerve gas hand grenades.” I am gonna have to find out where to buy some of those; Wal Mart was sold out this morning.
Even when they are nuts the Dictators of Color recall the key words to set off the Left and MSM.
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:47 am 12. Doug:I’m just glad you brought the Nuclear Tipped Bomarc to our attention.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:18 am 13. Doug:—
The sight of an entire fleet of Bears,
Vaporized, is just too perfect for Doc Strangelove and me.
Bomarc
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:25 am 14. Doug:Miss Bomarc of Utah
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:29 am 15. Monday, June 29, 2009: Daily Handpicked Headlines :: Daily Uprising:[...] Richard Fernandez: British Distillery Gets $2.7 Billion of U.S. Stimulus [...]
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:08 am 16. JMH:When I heard the news that no physical (or virtual) copy of the energy bill (’bill’ as defined by a final copy) existed at the time of the vote, is there a Constitutional issue here? … Aside for the common sense hurdles to voting for something that doesn’t exist, did the House break the law?
Irrelevant question as long as Democrats (and Republican Quislings) are getting elected. Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Barney Frank don’t care about the law, they are the law. Or so they think.
However, I think it might become a relevant question if, miracle of miracles, a responsible party is elected to power in Congress on a wave of righteous anger. At that point, the obvious lack of respect for due process could be used to simply abrogate TARP and perhaps even extract whatever money can be extracted from the beneficiaries.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:16 am 17. RWE:Doug:
Interesting thing about the Bomarc is that the structure was made out of an alloy of Thoriated Magnesium.
So the airframe itself was radioactive.
On The Bill, I understand that some of those 300 added pages held blank provisions to be filled in later?
So Congress is not only passing legislation that no one has been able to read but which has not been written yet?
So Future Provison 3568.911.09 of The Bill might be that the 2nd Amendment is abolished for anyone who uses any energy?
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:25 am 18. Robohobo:“…in a fog of confusion and panic…”
And so was the end of The Republic engineered.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:58 am 19. Jay:The setup of the House vote on the GE and Wall Street payoff bill on cap and trade was a gross violation of centuries on Anglo-American parliamentary rules. We are now in a dictatorship of corrupt politicians, corporate rent seekers, environmentalists, and the creepy Creative class nurds.
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:28 am 20. PA Cat:At least we are fortunate that they believe in “smart power”. They despise the military and police and expect the courts to do their bidding and then we will obey.
That is the approach taken by university administrators. In my university the president, a law professor and ex law school dean, is centralizing power. He has pushed a bizarre restructuring of our freshman program that will put the kids in the hands of new left humanities professors.
As long as their parents do not care what the kids learn or not learn his scheme will work sort of. So far most of our undergraduates and almost all of the non science graduate students still act as if degrees will put them in the upper middle class.
But most employers call the college graduates the Entitlement Generation. They know about grade inflation.
Only 40% of our undergraduates come to class. That is common in state universities and some good private schools. The kids work and play and do just enough to get a degree.
Way OT: saw this sad news over at Neo-neocon’s blog:
I have some extremely sad news to report: I received an email from a relative of commenter FredHjr saying that he died suddenly and unexpectedly on Friday, June 26, from a concussion sustained in a fall.
I am 99 percent sure that Neo’s commenter is the same FredHjr who has posted so often and so thoughtfully on Wretchard’s threads.
God rest his soul and comfort his family– including those of us who were part of his virtual family.
Jun 29, 2009 - 11:06 am 21. Mark:Jay writes: “The kids work and play and do just enough to get a degree.”
They’re just developing their ruling elite skills set. Sounds like good training for producing 300 pages of corporate sponsored legislation/blank provision. Maybe the new president of the university will provide the students with some pre-internship training by letting the class majority assign grades?
Jun 29, 2009 - 11:50 am 22. Walt:It’s nice to have good friends in real high places
Jun 29, 2009 - 12:12 pm 23. Jay:Like congresspersons looking out for you
Who write you in without the slightest traces
Of what it’s for or why it’s for or who
They add their little schemers in the darkness
When all believe the gaveled day is through
They understand their colleagues will thus hark less
To what it is that they’re about to do
But what is two point seven billion dollars
When calculated ‘gainst the greater good
No point in getting hot under the collars
It’s just the way things are, that’s understood
It isn’t if it really were your money
It isn’t if you had it in your hand
But if you think this kind of stuff ain’t funny
Come ‘lection day just tell them go pound sand
Mark, I am a professor in a state university in a large diverse conservative state. Many of our undergraduates are from upper middle class families but we also have plenty of upward mobile poorer students from Hispanic families.
Jun 29, 2009 - 12:48 pm 24. noprisoners:Very few of our graduates will end up in the ruling class. Some will become lawyers in large firms but they do not have the elite attitudes of the kids at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford etc.
Grades are inflated. One of my young colleagues was handed a petition by the weak students demanding easier exams. My colleague was supported by the chairman. He did not get any flack from the admins.
Removed by author
Jun 29, 2009 - 1:07 pm 25. wretchard:Although it in now way changes or diminishes anything, I did a search on “FredHjr” in comments and can’t find him. I know we have a Fred and a Fred2, he was on other sites, it’s true, but I can’t find any trace of a FredHjr.
Jun 29, 2009 - 1:55 pm 26. Roderick Reilly:“”"”"We are now in a dictatorship of corrupt politicians, corporate rent seekers, environmentalists, and the creepy Creative class nurds.”"”"”"
Jay: my variant on the theme is that we are now ruled by a collection of looters.
Jun 29, 2009 - 2:18 pm 27. PA Cat:Wretchard–
He probably used one of the other “Fred” names here. But the details he gave about himself and his past were the same as those given by Neo’s “FredHJr.”
Jun 29, 2009 - 2:28 pm 28. Contrarian:The only thing that will straighten out this insanity and restore American liberty is the destruction of the Federal Government. We need to trash the Constitution, which was a profound mistake made in 1787, and return to the concept of the Articles of Confederation, which had the relationship between the States exactly right. I encourage all of you Belmont Clubbers to go back and read the arguments against ratification that the anti-federalists made. They were dead on. This monster State that we have today is a total repudiation of every founding principle that the Americans fought for in the Revolutionary War.
Jun 29, 2009 - 2:35 pm 29. Mad Fiddler:We shoulda never come down from the trees.
(Thanks, Douglas Adams.)
Jun 29, 2009 - 3:23 pm 30. Marcus Aurelius:The matter of the bill being present when the vote takes place is not a constitutional issue, it is a matter of the rules of the particular body, in this case the house. The constitution allows each house to develop its own rules.
So, it comes down a question of the rules of the house and what those say regarding the presence of a physical copy of the bill.
Now that aside, I am no parliamentarian but it seems to me the whole idea of a legislative body is to seriously consider and craft policy. This can hardly be considered serious consideration — even among the Democrat caucus
Jun 29, 2009 - 3:29 pm 31. Urban B:Marcus @ 30:
The rules of the 111th Congress is 53 pages long, which is tolerable. However, I am not quite busy enough to avoid blog reading and posting, yet too busy today to read through the entire House rules. As I am certainly interested in this, I may decide to tackle it within the next week, before this is forgotten. All I can say is that I recall (from school) the principle of avoiding surprise bills through the ‘reading’ of such bills and amendments. I believe any request for such readings can be overruled either by the Speaker or by a vote. Something like that.
I do plan to call my congressman’s office to find out if the issue has come up.
Jun 29, 2009 - 3:57 pm 32. Karen Yvonne:This is way beyond a mere failure of due diligence. Likening it to “a magician’s sleight of hand” or explaining things away with “Baucus didn’t know until months later…” or “lawmakers didn’t realize they were ratifying…” doesn’t cut it. Why do we have to accept a legislative-process-as-sausage-making anyway? Why is this even acceptable as normal SOP? It all sickens and disgusts me. The one thing that IS crystal clear: the conduct of the people’s business is NOT in good hands. Representatives who voted for this barely-there bill should all be fired for gross incompetence.
PA Cat - In addition to being sick and disgusted, I’m saddened indeed to hear about Fred, if he is *our* Fred. Is he the one from New England who often spoke of his misguided past as a Leftist? I hope it’s not him. He would be missed.
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:11 pm 33. Marcus Aurelius:Yeah those rules are tolerable. I read the Senate rules when Reid tried to dodge seating Burris by abusing the rules, the rules he was citing in that case did not apply as he tried to make us believe.
I’ll look into it myself, but I am busy d’loading video right now.
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:34 pm 34. rickl:32. Karen Yvonne:
Yes, that’s him, all right. I think he was “fred” here.
Here is the link to Neo-neocon’s post:
Very sad news about commenter FredHjr
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:42 pm 35. aaron:I got to see my senator today. I couldn’t help but tell him about my distillery…
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:03 pm 36. Elijah:“These kinds of shennanigans make one wonder what is actually inside the “energy reform bill” that House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio tried to filibuster when a 300 page amendment to it was introduced at 3 am.”
“The right question is what’s in it…for who.”
see Bubble # 6, Global Warming in “The Great American Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:25 pm 37. Karen Yvonne:Thanks, rickl. That is a sad confirmation. Although commenting on blogs is an anonymous thing, you can’t help but feel that you have sort of gotten to know someone when their comments have that tone of sincerity and lack of manipulation, as Fred’s always did. I suppose that’s why one of the posts at the Neo-neocon link could say: “He was a good man,” without ever having met him. Perhaps some regulars really did know him better than some of his real-life acquaintances.
The righteous perish, and no ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil te – Isaiah 57:1
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:41 pm 38. Karen Yvonne:Nix the ‘te’ from that last line. Not sure what happened there.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:54 pm 39. bogie wheel:Twain called it: “America has no native criminal class, except perhaps Congress.”
Trillions of dollars, Gordian-knot-like layers of bureaucratic redundancy, and little to no oversight are not a good combination. Where there’s cheese, there will be rats. Where there’s gubmint cheese, there will be … super-rats.
Roderick R – Over at Samizdata they are calling it the Political Looter Class.
BTW, did anyone see that Neil Cavuto interview with GOP Congressman Joe Knollenberg (Michigan) last November? (It’s on YouTube, and easy to find.)
The subject of the interview was the Detroit bailout. Cavuto asks the Congressman where he draws the line with the prospect of industry after industry coming to DC, hat in hand, insisting that all hell will break loose if that industry is allowed to fail.
Exact quotes:
Cavuto: … Where do you draw the line with our money?
Knollenberg: It is not your money. In fact, if -
Cavuto: It is! It is taxpayers’ money!
The scariest part of this Freudian-Congressman slip is, this is not Barney Frank talking. It’s a rather mild-mannered no-name Republican. How typical is this attitude, one has to wonder?
As our own walking disgrace of a Senator, Arlen Specter, put it when he made an appearance at a college here in Pittsburgh, gee, there’s all that money waiting to be spent, and he HAS to give it to someone, and if he doesn’t give it to A, then B will get it, since golly-gee-whiz, Washington is a town populated by hustlers looking for a handout, therefore there are no innocents in this scenario.
At the risk of sounding like a certain head of state whose initials are TOTUS, that is a “false choice.” Specter would have us believe that his only choices are to spend the money by giving it to Hustler A, Hustler B, Hustler C (etc. ad nauseum). Whereas there is at least one other choice: return the money to the taxpayer who was forced to fork it over in the first place.
Why does the obvious choice of returning needlessly gouged tax revenue to the taxpayer never seem to occur to the Senator? Because the taxpayer will never name a hospital or an airport after the Senator, nor is he likely to drop a cool $5 or $10K in the Senator’s reelection fund, that’s why.
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:06 pm 40. wretchard:We haven’t heard from our own Fred in a while. His own belief taught him not to be afraid to die, and therefore I suppose, not to be afraid to live. We saw some of that here. And perhaps one day, when the network transport layer extends to all the parts of everything that have memory; when nothing is left that is disconnected, then the messages will flow again. For nothing will be said unless there is something to say. And our hope for Fred, if he no longer with us, rests in the fact that he had something to say.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:32 pm 41. elby:Fred was one of my favorite commenters here. He will be missed greatly. Amazing how someone we have never met can touch our lives. Our loss is heaven’s gain.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:05 pm 42. Marcus Aurelius:Well I guess after my bottles of Meiers and other such rums are empty I’lln ot be buying new ones, instead I have a fairly reliable logistics line set up for Tanduay rum!
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:26 pm 43. GerryP:28/Contrarian: “The only thing that will straighten out this insanity and restore American liberty is the destruction of the Federal Government.”
Yes! It is so big that the humongous size of the pot of honey draws flies from all over the country – heck, from all over the world. It is so big that anything can be covered up and we usually would never know, because it takes place far from us.
Devolve the powers of the federal government to the states. Close down the departments of Education, HUD, HEW, etc., etc. Let these go to the states, where they will be smaller and easier to watch.
But this would not end the power of the fed to tax – then to gobble the revenues as they choose. So – let the states seceed. No more federal power, unless we want a few functions to be federal. Like making war, diplomacy, and minimally, interstate commerce. Or some states could clump together in small republics and run these for themselves, closer to home.
In fact, there’s even an article called “50 State Secession”! At http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle485-20080921-03.html
It says that if all 50 states seceed at once (or enough of them) the federal government will have no choice but to die. No money!
After all, no matter how great a system we invent to correct old abuses, someday it will be dying of abuse too. Something about human nature. No sooner than you set up a new system, people will start trying to find or invent ways to evade the rules and game the new system. After 200 years or so, there are so many holes and tunnels and secret chambers in the old system that it can’t be fixed. Only a new one will work.
It could be about that time again.
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:29 pm 44. dtmack:GerryP and Contrarian
I agree with some of your ideas, but Secession is the “nuclear option” in our politics, and few take that possibility seriously. Nor is it needed.
I’ve made the point many times, both here and elsewhere, that devolution of power back to the States should be the overriding goal of a new political movement in this country. But the country is far away from that idea, and most who are upset about the direction of the country think that a return to GOP power is the solution. I disagree with them, as well.
I’m of the opinion that, were we to have new elections tomorrow, and elect 535 Saints to Congress, we’d have about two years until things reverted back to the way they are now. There are just too many incentives for people to do the wrong thing, and many disincentives for them to do the correct thing. It’s not plausible to expect anyone to stand against this long term, regardless of their intentions when they were elected.
The only hope, in my opinion, is to reduce the number of things they have control over, but that is a distinct minority (or non-existent) view here at Belmont.
Talk of Secesssion just takes any argument that you have and relegates it to “tin foil hat” status. There will be no Sucession, and we don’t need one.
Jun 30, 2009 - 3:09 am 45. Paul A. Gaddis:This really is nothing new concerning the USVI. They stumble from one train wreck to another. I was there for just three years and saw the pattern then, extending back into the distant days of Dutch control.
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:53 am 46. GerryP:No one is responsible… but we really need that money. They where deep in debt before Hugo ( with legislators leading the looting post storm )and they get a pass. Then they don’t pay back the Hugo money, but all is forgiven, Every thing on those islands is falling apart but it is not their fault. It is usually the fault of the tourists and or the US gov. They have shaken down ever industry or business that dares to open its doors and if it has a white face then the price doubles.I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall, but it seems to just hang there in the air getting heavier and heavier.They live in fear of an Open Cuba and I don’t blame them!
44/dtmack
That’s a pretty big bucket of cold water. But probably needed. Thanks.
Jun 30, 2009 - 8:25 am 47. JFSanders:41. Elby: “He will be missed greatly. Amazing how someone we have never met can touch our lives.”
I imagine that James Madison said as much about the men he studied in history while forming his designs of American Republicanism.
I think of Fred in those terms. He educated me more greatly with fewer words than I was subjected to in 4yrs of university.
Jun 30, 2009 - 2:55 pm 48. bogie wheel:The only hope, in my opinion, is to reduce the number of things they have control over, but that is a distinct minority (or non-existent) view here at Belmont.
I recall the legalize/not drugs debate here a couple months back, so on that issue I’d say BCers do seem to be split on the acceptable amount of govt control in our lives.
But what gives you the impression that reducing the scope and power of government (esp federal) is a minority or non-existent view here at Belmont?
From the point of view of an anarchist, I guess we would all be seen as totalitarians, but gee ….
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:34 pm 49. Fresh Bilge » The Price of a Vote:[...] Here’s another $2.7 billion giveaway, from the “stimulus” bill. This has to stop! 1:03 PM, Wednesday, 1 Jul 09 [...]
Jul 1, 2009 - 1:27 pm