Byrd Dropping

Kerry Howley | November 18, 2005

The Byrd Amendment, which funnels revenue from antidumping tariffs directly to the companies that requested the tariffs in the first place, may finally be dead:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to kill a trade program that has paid more than $1 billion to U.S. companies since 2000 and been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization.

Congressional investigators released a report in September showing that nearly $500 million in payments under the program went to just five companies, and that two-thirds of total payments went to three industries: bearings, candles and steel.

Or not:

The Senate's $35 billion package of budget cuts leaves the measure intact.

GAO report here. Senator Byrd (D-W.V.) explains that he justs wants foreigners to "play by the rules" here.

Comments

|11.18.05 @ 3:32PM|#

I am a staunch Democrat, but Byrd irks the hell out of me (God knows WV needs the pork though).
I can forgive a repentent guy for being in the Ku Klux Klan, but does he have to be a Senator?

|11.18.05 @ 4:53PM|#

Great post title. Your job at The Daily Show awaits.

|11.18.05 @ 4:53PM|#

So, a company can lobby for a direct transfer from its foreign competitors?

OK...

|11.18.05 @ 5:10PM|#

Calling some government funded project in WV a Byrd Dropping is pretty common. The pork is usually classified as either a Byrd Dropping or a Mollohandout.

|11.18.05 @ 6:54PM|#

Candles?

Wow, I didn't realize the wax industry was so cutthroat.

|11.18.05 @ 7:26PM|#

Wow, I didn't realize the wax industry was so cutthroat.

Perhaps they cut their teeth fighting the unfair trade practices -- viz. providing a better, cheaper product that wasn't made of wax -- of the light bulb industry.

|11.18.05 @ 8:01PM|#

MikeP:

I'm surprised that buggy-whip manufacturers (to employ an overused example) aren't in on the cut.

|11.18.05 @ 8:12PM|#

Rather than "Byrd Dropping," why couldn't it be "Byrd Smacking into Wind-Powered Electricity Generator and Dropping Down Daid?"

Answering my own question: WV ain't windy enough for federally-funded windmills. Not yet, anyway. If Byrd lives long enough... a gentle breeze will do fine.

Is anybody investigating whether Byrd is putting his bill up the nethers of that old fart, Stevens, in Alaska wanting to build the Bridge to Nowhere?

Farts of a feather, we all are.

|11.19.05 @ 1:27AM|#

NAFTA has ruled time and again that the US tariff on Canada's softwood lumber is illegal, but the tariff goes on. US lumber companies have received payouts from the takings. Maybe Byrd would do well to insist that his side play by the rules.

ivan|11.21.05 @ 7:58AM|#

Senator Byrd (D-W.V.) explains that he justs wants foreigners to "play by the rules"

Of course, but according to the WTO it are the Americans who are not playing by the rules.

And who is making the rules anyway?

|11.24.05 @ 10:07PM|#

Leave it to ROBERT BYRD BRAIN to come up with more rediclous tax and spend ideas what wrong with this turkey?