Strib's online items are AP feeds, here and here.
They are worth reading, with information about Big Oil, due to White House veto pressure getting, for now pending a new White House presence next year, getting the offshore drilling ban dropped in this round. Later, a handful of Senators can be quite disruptive, even in the minority, under a new presidency. It is a big issue in California, hence a big issue with Pelosi.
Read the items for more detail. This is from the first link, beginning with deficit financing of part of the Senate's tax measure:
The issue of paying for tax relief clouds the other aspects of the tax package. The Senate bill pays for the $17 billion in renewable energy tax credits by limiting deductions available to the oil and natural gas industry. But the Senate only pays for about $25 billion of the $68 billion in business and individual tax breaks. The most expensive is the $19 billion cost in the Senate bill of renewing the research and development tax credit for two years.
The House energy relief and tax extension bill, which is expected to be debated Thursday, is fully paid for.
"While we applaud the Senate for acting yesterday and taking a step toward being fiscally responsible, their bill still falls short of the pay-as-you-go principle that House Democrats have insisted on," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in a statement.
Neither chamber would pay for the $8 billion in disaster relief. The Senate bill targets much of that relief to areas in the Midwest hit by natural disasters this summer and Texas and Louisiana counties damaged by Hurricane Ike. The House bill distributes the aid more generally.
That angered the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, whose state of Iowa was devastated by storms this summer. "The House leaders' disregard for Midwestern disaster victims is shameful. When New York was attacked and New Orleans was under water, we dropped everything to give tax relief for recovery," Grassley said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pleaded with the House not to tinker with the Senate-passed package, warning that imposing so-called offsets would kill the bill because of Republican opposition in the Senate. "If the House doesn't pass this, the full responsibility of this not passing is theirs, not ours."
The energy legislation extends for eight years, through 2016, investment tax credits for the solar power industry and for homeowners who install solar and wind equipment.
Taxpayers may claim a credit of up to $7,500 for purchasing plug-in electric cars, and production credits are extended to wind and biomass facilities. There are incentives to use smart meters for more efficient home energy use.
[emphasis added] Of that language, I have a question for which readers might have helpful comments.
Having a background in the sciences, and technology, I know there is real R & D, and there can be phantom R & D, and I would hope the legislation fosters the one, which is an investment in the nation's future, and quells the latter, which is a waste of resources by letting garbage have a loophole.
SPECIFICALLY - Here, I have noted a garbage patent application that the bankrupt Lehman Brothers firm has filed. For structuring a derivative trading instrument that seems in no way novel or worthy of a grant of a patent. It is not innovative as was, say invention of the transister about fifty or so years ago, in Bell Labs. It is hocus pocus, but in a patent application.
THE QUESTION: Is the law now, as written and applied by the Bush IRS and will it be that the kind of pure garbage item I highlighted can earn a poorly handled operation like Lehman Brothers a tax break on Wall Street? That would be wrong, while Main Street - small businesses seldom are large enough to pursue patents, mainly in things such as local services, and often do not think to do innovative patentable R & D work - are such small concerns seldom would be able to exploit this kind of tax credit availability. Surely it is proper for drug companies to earn such a credit, the credit helps venture-capital fostered high tech startups from which new good job growth arise, and there are leading-edge large firms in Minnesota such as 3M and Medtronic that innovate, the latter now being big, but far from an old and established venture such as in the oil and auto segment and instead a perfect example of how innovative startup effort can create many good jobs as something an R & D tax credit aids. So, in general, earned R & D credits for REAL and sound R & D is well worth the way it biases commerce via tax incentive use.
BOTTOM LINE: If there is abuse of the R & D tax credit law, it imperils the benefits to and from worthwhile firms such as Boeing that help lessen the bad trade balances the nation has had recently, where Boeing patents are real and innovation such as using composites in aircraft promises a weight-reduction and maintenance bonanza so that fuel and operating costs in the airline industry will be far lower with the 787 and newer aircraft than for earlier ones. Boeing and Intel, 3M and Medtronic, are examples of firms that earn their tax credits. Wall Street's development of smoke and mirror derivatives of the kind that has led to the financial system's most recent crash and to current near-trillion dollar bailout propositions should NEVER be a situation where the perpatrators of the problem can successfully say, "It's a patent, it 'innovates' and it entitles us to R & D tax breaks for its 'development'."
That's a hoax, amounting to little beyond theft from all the rest of us, if it was allowed. I fear it might have been.
So, readers, I don't know - please help - how broadly has the Bush IRS allowed that R & D tax credit to be claimed? Whatever that measure of questionable judgment, we can expect a McCain will to deliver more of the same. So it is a good and timely question to be asking going into November.
Have the Wall Street "wizards" been getting R & D tax credits while putting the economy into its present bind because of overly "creative" financial offerings blowing up in their portfolios?
Any answer, Franken people, Obama people?
What's Wall Street, in this dimension done and been allowed to do?