If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. That must have been CNBC host Melissa Francis’ line of thinking when she described the so-called “tax extenders” included in the U.S. Senate’s bailout bill.
The bill, which passed in the Senate by a margin of 74-25, late on Oct. 1, included “sweeteners” – or obscure tax breaks – including breaks for wooden arrows used by children and another
Francis and CNBC “Squawk on the Street” co-host Mark Haines called it all “crap” on their Oct. 1 special coverage of the vote. Their terms was similar to a description used by House Minority Leader John Boehner’s description of the House version of the bailout: “crap sandwich.”
FRANCIS: “Steve, what about all this crap they added on? I mean – the arrows and the …”
CNBC Correspondent STEVE LEISMAN: “I didn’t call it this ...”
FRANCIS: “Well, I called it crap. It’s crap. Mark, is it crap?”
HAINES: “I will second that emotion.”
LEISMAN: “Second that emotion? You didn’t say the word.”
HAINES: “Crap – it’s crap. Are you happy now?”
LEISMAN: “OK – you did.”
FRANCIS: “I’m less delicate than you guys are.”
The bailout portion of the bill is similar to the House bailout, which was defeated. It includes the $700 billion, but an additional $150 billion in tax extenders. In the same segment, Dan Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and Business & Media Institute adviser described the bill as “lose-lose” and referred to similar bailouts that occurred in
“It’s a lose-lose situation for taxpayers because we’re going to get raped $700 billion to bail out Wall Street in a way that’s going to make our economy worse just like it made Japan’s economy worse in the 1990s and we’re paying for it with a bunch of special interest provisions,” Mitchell said. “Making government bigger and more powerful is not a recipe for prosperity. We don’t want to be like
Earlier in the day, MSNBC’s chief
