Taxpayers are justifiably wary of seeing $700 billion of their hard earned tax dollars bailing out the bad debts of Wall Street bad apples.

When most Americans invest poorly, they have to accept the financial consequences. It seems fundamentally unfair to take care of Wall Street before the rest of us. At the same time, people don’t want to see their retirement accounts, 401(k) plans, or other investments lose value; they want their kids to be able to get student loans and car loans; and they don’t want to see the credit system collapse. Very few people are happy about the bailout bill, and the options are difficult to parse.

The Senate drove us nuts when, in the midst of a debate over a historic bailout package, it pulled out an old bag of tricks: piling billions of dollars of unrelated legislative provisions into the package and daring the House to reject the bailout again. Many of these provisions are tax extenders that have been waiting in the wings for months, hoping for a legislative train to leave the station.

So instead of an enormous $700 billion bailout, Congress is now considering a bill with more than $800 billion in spending, including tax benefits for arrow manufacturers, rum in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and film and television producers.

With the addition of the tax extenders legislation, Congress is using this national economic emergency to smooth the way for controversial legislation. Throughout the process, the House and Senate have had very different approaches to this bill. The House, specifically the Blue Dogs, demanded that the bills costs be offset. The Senate has not.

Tax break for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children – The legislation suspends a 39-cent excise tax on arrows made from natural wood, a provision that has been backed by Senators Ron Wyden (D) and Gordon Smith (R) of Oregon; the tax relief would benefit Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, OR, and a handful of other companies. The cost is estimated at $2 million.

Race Track Tax Break: A $100 million provision that allows NASCAR racetracks to write off capital investments, such as new concession stands and repaving tracks, over a seven-year period.  

Film and Television Productions: Hollywood seems to be one sector of our economy that continues to prosper these days, but film and television production facilities won an extension of a special tax break. This provision will cost taxpayers $478 million over the next ten years. Perhaps Senators had a little too much rum in the daiquiris they were sipping while considering this legislation – most likely rum from the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico that will also receive a tax break extension at a taxpayer cost of $192 million.

The $700 billion bailout itself is hard for taxpayers to stomach, but adding $110 billion dollars of unrelated tax breaks and spending to this legislation was irresponsible and unnecessary. In these times of historic economic turmoil, lawmakers had an obligation to give the public a clean bill. They failed.