The Bailout Bill: Professionals at Work!
10/11/2008
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As is well known, the recently passed Bailout Bill finished heavily laden with earmarks providing large quantities of pork completely unrelated to stabilizing the financial system. Most recipients had the good taste to keep quiet about their plunder: not The Jewish Daily Forward.

Jewish Lobbyists Successful in Adding Programs To Bailout Bill By Nathan Guttman Wed Oct 08 2008 gloats:

..lobbyists for Jewish philanthropies and for service providers worked with the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with the Democratic and Republican caucuses in both chambers to make sure that some of the extra spending attached to the legislation was targeted to their causes.
One triumph was an expansion of the Lautenberg Amendment, the scam by which the New Jersey Senator was able to arrange the expedited import and US Taxpayer support of large quantities of Russian Jews (with subsequent cosmetic additions). Guttman reports:
Another piece of legislation approved was the extension of Supplemental Security Income benefits for refugees in the process of naturalization. Originally the program was designed to provide assistance for up to seven years, until these refugees become citizens. Yet as the processing period for naturalization has grown longer, many immigrants lost their benefits before gaining citizenship. The new legislation will extend the period for an extra two years, thus restoring benefits for some 8,000 Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have already lost their eligibility for assistance
A particular problem with this is, with the Refugee Industry working full time, it will apply to such dysfunctional imports as the Somalis.

Guttman is pleased with another subsidy obtained:

Other measures approved by Congress and of interest to Jewish advocacy groups promoting social justice (include)…the allocation of Homeland Security funds for not-for-profit groups. In recent years, this money has become a leading source of funding security needs for Jewish institutions across the country.
That sounds like something which merits auditing.

Initially I was puzzled by Guttman’s enthusiasm for the inclusion of

the mental health parity effort known as the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. It compels health insurance providers to give the same coverage to mental health problems and addiction treatment as is currently given to physical problems. ”This is part of the process of normalizing mental health treatment. It shows this is no longer something that should be swept under the rug,” said William Daroff, vice president for public policy at the United Jewish Communities, which is the group that led Jewish efforts on these legislative issues.
The late Senator Wellstone of course was Jewish, and his death was a tragedy, and he was apparently particularly interested in this issue - but time moves on.

Then I realized that Psychiatric profession, whose income  will be greatly bolstered by this development, is perhaps the most Jewish of the branches of medical care.

One day, perhaps, founding-stock Americans will have agents who look after their particular interests as well

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