Corporate tax bill blossoms with special interest breaks during spring deb

[Judi Lynn]

Corporate tax bill blossoms with special interest breaks during spring debate

By Mary Dalrymple
ASSOCIATED PRESS
9:19 a.m. May 9, 2004

WASHINGTON – It started as an effort to eliminate a $5 billion tax break for exporters that irked the European Union. Since then, a tax bill has blossomed into a $170 billion cornucopia of special breaks for the cruise ship industry, former Oldsmobile dealers, NASCAR and makers of bows and arrows.

Typically, critics say, it is during that dark of night that lawmakers slip such benefits into bills like the one now before the Senate. This time, however, many of the tax breaks were added in full light of day.

The Senate Finance Committee chairman publicly disclosed most of them and folded them into the corporate tax bill, which Republicans are calling the Jumpstart Our Business Strength (JOBS) bill. Then Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked colleagues to support it.
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Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said it was an "in-your-face, 'Here's your special parochial pork barrel tax provision, now I want your vote,' approach."
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20040509-0919-corporatetaxes.html

[mike_c]

1. all the pigs are nuzzling at the trough...

...waiting to feed on the dying American middle class.