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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (277575)	3/1/2006 6:25:51 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574595

Important to keep Bushie corruption out of the clean fuels business. It is critical that clean fuels programs work efficiently and honestly. If it's just another ripoff scheme for friends of GW and the rich schemers, then we all lose again. In fact, it's critical to wipe out all Bushie corruption no matter where it is. A smell a big corrupt rat in this Dubai Ports deal. Why would Bush push so hard for a deal he claims he didn't even know about? Betcha a big fat check has been promised GW through Carlyle Group. 50-100 million maybe? Bush may be looking for his golden parachute, pissing on homeland security in the process.

To: TimF who wrote (277575)	3/1/2006 7:40:58 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574595

re: ...With so much at stake, the synfuelers have pumped money into a campaign to preserve their tax break. At the center of the synfuel lobby in Washington is a consortium called the Council for Energy Independence. It's a name worthy of the most successful Washington lobbies, in which private interests camouflage their mission under the banner of a worthy-sounding cause. The council is directed by one of Washington's premier tax lobbyists, Kenneth J. Kies, managing director of the Clark Consulting Federal Policy Group. A former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the congressional panel that oversees the drafting of tax laws, Kies is well situated to guide legislation that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a word... ...Last November the lobby scored a remarkable coup. Buried deep in a bill called the Tax Relief Act of 2005, passed by the Senate on Nov. 18, was Section 559, titled "Modification of Credit for Producing Fuel from a Nonconventional Source." Section 559 begins on page 317 of the bill and is written in the obscure jargon of all special-interest tax breaks--almost impossible to decipher, so bewildering is its language. At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a technical amendment to clarify some arcane section of tax law. But one clause offers a clue. It says the synfuel credit will be based not on current oil prices--the yardstick used in the past--but on "the amount which was in effect for sales in calendar year 2004." In 2004 oil prices were safely below the line to allow synfuel producers to claim the maximum credit. The stealth amendment would roll back the calendar. (Sort of like your missing the deadline for your mortgage payment, then backdating your check to avoid a late charge. But much more lucrative.) The backdating clause was in a larger bill introduced in the Senate by Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who heads the Senate Finance Committee. Just goes to show far how the current Republican congress will go to scam the American people. They will take a hugely important issue and use it to benefit their contributors. Thanks for posting. It's disgusting.