Democratic Leadership Buying Votes with Taxpayer Money?

The Washington Times reports that in order to convince Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptu of Ohio to support last week’s energy bill, they included a $3.5 billion pork project for her home district as a part of the “3AM amendment:”

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.

So not only is the underlying substance of the bill going to cost taxpayers over $20 billion a year – it now appears that special interest giveaways will further ratchet up the costs.