The wooden arrow "pork" has become such a joke about the bailout bill. Here is the truth about it:

[elocs]

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/an_oregon_arrow_maker_suffers.html

Dishion says the provision wasn't a tax break for his company as the critics have claimed. It was a tax repeal that corrected a mistake in the taxation of the little-known arrow industry.

"This is just righting a wrong," Dishion said. "We've been fielding all the phone calls and trying to explain what the situation is. Some of them get it. Some of them don't want to get it. They should be saying thank you."

The flap reveals the misinformation circulating about what the 43-cent tax repeal is really about, according to Jay McAninch, president of the Archery Trade Association. "It's amazing how complicated a little tax could be," McAninch said. "And how few people understand it. The fact of the matter is it's an important tax bill for a needed program. This isn't a pork barrel."

The tax became a problem for Rose City and a handful of other companies in 2004, when lawmakers, while trying to correct another problem with the arrow tax, changed a 12 percent tax on all arrows to a flat 43-cent tax on arrow shafts. The tax, which got tacked on to every arrow shaft, goes to fund educational programs put on by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The change hit the youth archery market particularly hard, doubling the cost of arrows used by kids. That's the lowest-cost segment of the archery market and just a small part of the nation's $500 million archery industry.

Rose City Archery's wooden arrow shafts sell for 30 cents. The 43-cent tax took a huge toll on its youth archery business, Dishion said. The company also manufactures adult hunting arrows that retail for about $12.

In 2004, Dishion said, the company sold 1 million arrow shafts. This year, the company sold 100,000.

"When the price of the arrow doubled, the Boy Scouts, the summer camps, the school programs started canceling archery programs," Dishion said.

Not such a joke when you go to the trouble to try and understand it. The measure concerning the wooden arrows was one that never had any opposition and just happened to end up in the bailout bill. I wonder how many other items are as easily dismissed as being just pure pork putting taxpayers' bucks in someone's pockets?

[amdezurik]

1. Oh piffle on your boring facts!

So much more fun to work up a good outrage and rant about it...

[Eric J in MN]

2. The criticism isn't about...

....whether taxes on wooden arrows should be changed.

The criticism if there is overwhelming evidence that the worldwide financial system will permanently stop without giving Bush $700 billion, then Congress would have passed the bailout bill by itself.

I don't believe that the worldwide financial system would have permanently stopped between now and January 20, with-or-without the bill.

[elocs]

5. I'm sorry, but the wooden arrows aspect was held up as a joke that was representative of everything

and in that specific case it was undeserving, but hardly anyone would take the time or effort to see if it had any merit. Children's wooden arrows was a convenient straw man to hold up as a joke to discredit the entire bill. I am speaking specifically of this business because the joke its plight became was undeserved.

[anigbrowl]

10. So what you would have done about rising TED spreads?

[roguevalley]

3. this bailout was supposed to 'transcend' politics and personal

agendas but it didn't. I feel for them but it makes this whole fiasco even stupider. (I ADORE archery.)

[ColbertWatcher]

4. None of it's a joke. Not even the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" or ...

... funding scientific studies of wildlife.

[elocs]

7. How is it that a mistaken tax that more than doubles the price of a children's product

be equated with the bridge to nowhere? :shrug: I didn't realize that this was such a difficult concept. Oh well.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. The reaction to the "arrow pork" is similar to the reaction to the BTN.

Someone on DU posted an article from an Alaskan's POV re: the BTN.

It was vastly different than how it was portrayed in the GOP-controlled media.

In fact, IIRC, locals were for it and became angry when Palin made a mockery of it.

Honestly, I really have no problem with infrastructure projects of even funding scientific studies. I do have problems with corrupt politicians like Ted Stevens abusing their position to take a little off the top to line his own pockets.

[Telly Savalas]

6. So they fucked up four years ago and couldn't get around to fixing it until now?

If that's true, it's even worse than it being pork.

If it was so critical, why didn't it make it on the original House bill drafted less than a week earlier?

[elocs]

8. Exactly how does this qualify as "pork"? This measure had no opposition from anyoe.

The bailout bill is where is happened to end up. Why not pick on something that actually is pork and jump all over it? This isn't exactly some fatcat Wall Street industry reaping some undeserved reward at taxpayer expense. Perhaps it would have been better to drive them out of business altogether since no real people work in children's wooden arrow manufacturing and sales.

[ellenfl]

9. this was not disclosed either . . .

American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008

HR3221

apparently, there is already legislation to assist homeowners . . . we just don't know about it.

ellen fl

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Damn! another one daring to interrupt a DU hissyfit with facts...

we should start a club.