gls
07-02-2009, 08:12 PM
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/tarp/2009/07/01/230874.html
UK Liquor Co. Got $2.7B of U.S. Bailout
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 10:21 AM
By: Julie Crawshaw Article Font Size
Back when the Troubled Asset Relief Program was being shoved through Congress, some legislators tacked on hidden tax breaks for firms in dozens of industries.
One of these was the British company, Diageo, the world's largest liquor distiller, which received $2.7 billion from the program.
“You had this remarkable brief period with no transparency, filled with backroom deals being made and an absolute blackout of information,” Jin Lucier, a senior political analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, told Bloomberg.
“It’s ridiculous and it’s a product of the legislative sausage-making machine,” Lucier said.
Diageo is using the windfall to move its production of Captain Morgan rum from Puerto Rico to St. Croix, in accordance with an agreement offered by U.S. Virgin islands Governor John deJongh Jr.
While many U.S. lawmakers didn’t know about the Diageo benefit when they voted for the bill, Puerto Rican officials did. They didn’t like it because deJongh’s compact with the British liquor company meant losing a share of federal tax dollars from rum exports.
“Rather than use the money to pay for social services, (the Virgin Islands) is luring a big employer, but it's an even-sum thing for the United States as a whole, since it's another one of our territories that's losing the plant,” Clusterstock’s Joe Weisenthal wrote.
“Really glad we rushed that one through,” he wrote.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
UK Liquor Co. Got $2.7B of U.S. Bailout
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 10:21 AM
By: Julie Crawshaw Article Font Size
Back when the Troubled Asset Relief Program was being shoved through Congress, some legislators tacked on hidden tax breaks for firms in dozens of industries.
One of these was the British company, Diageo, the world's largest liquor distiller, which received $2.7 billion from the program.
“You had this remarkable brief period with no transparency, filled with backroom deals being made and an absolute blackout of information,” Jin Lucier, a senior political analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, told Bloomberg.
“It’s ridiculous and it’s a product of the legislative sausage-making machine,” Lucier said.
Diageo is using the windfall to move its production of Captain Morgan rum from Puerto Rico to St. Croix, in accordance with an agreement offered by U.S. Virgin islands Governor John deJongh Jr.
While many U.S. lawmakers didn’t know about the Diageo benefit when they voted for the bill, Puerto Rican officials did. They didn’t like it because deJongh’s compact with the British liquor company meant losing a share of federal tax dollars from rum exports.
“Rather than use the money to pay for social services, (the Virgin Islands) is luring a big employer, but it's an even-sum thing for the United States as a whole, since it's another one of our territories that's losing the plant,” Clusterstock’s Joe Weisenthal wrote.
“Really glad we rushed that one through,” he wrote.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.