A ton of pork, referred to as “sweeteners” – i.e., sweetening the deal so as to obtain the commitment of an individual senator to the bill – made it into the bailout bill passed by the Senate last night.
If this is indeed the major financial crisis represented by some of our elected officials, why do senators have to be bribed to do the right thing and vote in favor of this bill? If they believed this measure was necessary, they should have voted for it without insisting on the addition of pork. If they do not believe this measure is necessary, then what they did was vote for pork (itself defined as unnecessary spending) with a $700 billion surcharge.