The Democrat-controlled Congress is pushing legislation out too fast that those in Congress have no idea what’s in the legislation they’re passing and their colleagues are slipping in pork without them knowing it:

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.
Today, as two 56-foot-high (17-meter-high) tanks for holding fermenting molasses will soon rise from the ground on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, the extent to which dozens of nonbank companies benefited from last October’s emergency financial rescue plan is just beginning to come to light.
The hurried legislation adopted by a Congress voting under the threat of sudden global economic collapse led to hidden tax breaks for firms in dozens of industries. They included builders of Nascar auto-racing tracks, restaurant chains such as Burger King Holdings Inc., movie and television producers — and London’s Diageo.
[…]
In March, deJongh, 51, describes the history of the agreement in his office in the Government House…
He says he traveled to Washington in June 2008 to brief federal officials. He met with Representative Charles Rangel of New York, who’s chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico; West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller; and then Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
[…]
Diageo also qualifies for additional tax incentives, reducing its U.S.V.I. tax liabilities to as low as 3.5 percent, from 35 percent.

Nice deal. I bet a lot of American companies wish they had it.
That’s your tax dollars at work, folks. We’re broke and we’re bailing out a British company. Nice work, Democrats.
BTW, it’s fun to play spot the Democrat in the article. Those with their hands in your wallet, taking out your money and giving it to a British-run rum company are Democrats. I thought I’d help you out since the only Democrat named in the article is Max Baucus (Baucus must have done something to tick off the reporter).
(via and Instapundit)

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