The 300-Page Bribery

One of the big stories during last Friday's cap-and-tax vote was the addition of 300 pages to the legislation at 3am on the morning the vote was scheduled. No one had a chance to read it, though John Boehner read excerpts of it during his one hour floor speech.

What was in those 300 pages? Bribes. Lots of bribes, designed to sway undecided Democrats to vote for the largest tax hike in U.s. history:

When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.

They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state’s Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, included the Kaptur project in a 310-page amendment to the legislation unveiled at 3 a.m. Friday, just hours before the bill was to be debated on the House floor. The amendment was packed with other vote-getting provisions, both large and small, that had been sought by dozens of wavering Democrats.

KTLA is reporting this morning that Chairman Henry Waxman, who railroaded this whole thing through, was hospitalized this morning after "not feeling well". I guess constant lying about climate change and health care is finally taking its toll.