The bill included tax break extensions for folks suffering from Hurricane Ike. In case y'all didn't know, LA-01 suffered from some pretty bad flooding during Ike. But the bill didn't include one parish from LA-01 as being eligible for those tax breaks.
Yet Mr. Scalise chose to get political attention for himself by railing against Wall Street, and voting Nay on the bailout. He even took the time to call into WWL on Thursday and talk with constituents about his opposition to the bailout.
Had he been doing his job as an advocate for LA-01, he would have fought to get LA-01 parishes included in the Hurricane Ike tax breaks. Some of y'all might say that he was opposed to the bill, so why would he include things in it? Folks, while on WWL on Thursday, he stated that he knew the bill would pass. If he knew it would pass, you would think he'd try to help out his own constituents, no? That is what we sent him there to do, right?
A tax break for rum produced in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands may trigger a hangover for proponents of Congress' huge bailout bill after the U.S. Senate tacked on tax reductions for the islands' liquor.
In its current form, the estimated cost of the U.S. Caribbean rum tax proposal, which provides payment to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for rum imported into the mainland, is US$192 million over 10 years.
Normally, this tax break would be extended with little fanfare, but the Senate screwed the pooch on this one, y'all. Something tells me that we're going to be revisiting this mess under the next Administration come January.
Anyhow, here's the breakdown of the Louisiana delegation in the House vote:
Ayes:
LA-03: Charlie Melancon (D)
LA-04: Jim McCrery (R)
LA-05: Rodney Alexander (R)
LA-07: Charles Boustany (R)
Nays:
LA-01: Steve Scalise (R)
LA-02: Bill Jefferson (D)
LA-06: Don Cazayoux (D)
Steve's in the fight of his life in LA-01; and so is Bill over in LA-02; and Don is facing a tough re-election battle against Bill Cassidy. Still, Don sent out this statement about his vote: (emphasis added)
""Today, I cast my vote against Senate version of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. This was decidedly one of the toughest votes I have taken during my career in elected office, but I am confident that I cast the right vote. It is my firm belief that giving Wall Street $700 billion in taxpayer money is not the right way to solve the fundamental challenges facing our economy and financial markets. I was hopeful that the new compromise bill would have a smaller pricetag with less taxpayer liability, but it did not."
