Would you like to super size your bailout, sir?

Maybe the current bailout fever is Congress' way of getting into the spirit of the season-- saying in effect, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." They will undoubtedly also be saying, "Yes, New Jersey, there is a Santa Claus... Yes, Ohio, there is a Santa Claus. . ."   Thomas Sowell.

Well they are now asking for it, as reported in NYT.

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson joined governors from several other large states on Friday in ramping up their calls for assistance from the federal government, asking for a total of $1 trillion for all 50 states over two years. …

Gov. Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts said, “We’re really talking about a bridge from where we are today to where we think the economy will be in two years’ time.” He spoke during a conference call in which he was joined by Mr. Paterson and the governors of New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin. All five men are (you guessed it) Democrats.

States are forecasting budget deficits over the next two years that total nearly $100 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. ….

Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey said the $1 trillion figure was comparatively small as a portion of the nation’s $14.4 trillion gross domestic product.

“One trillion dollars sounds like a lot of money, and is a lot of money,” Mr. Corzine said. (Could have fooled me.)

Meanwhile back in Oz the tourism industry is looking for handouts again. It would be difficult to assess just how much, these people get out of us already as they are assisted at every level of government. I ended up in a blue many years ago after suggesting that my local authority should not be taking rate money from struggling farmers to print brochures for local tourist operators. I thought I was likely to be burnt as a heretic, especially by those operators.

Tourism based sporting events are especially good at raking in tax dollars, as the now failed Gold Coast Indy proved. They argued successfully for years that they would eventually make a profit and in the meantime it would benefit all Queenslanders, to have their taxes spent to provide profits for the Coast er, benefit the economy as a whole.

But this time they only are asking for 1.7 billion: -

The tourism industry is lobbying the Federal Government to fight the effects of the financial crisis by paying Australians up to $1.7 billion to holiday at home.

The latest overseas arrivals figures from the Bureau of Statistics (ABS), released today, show visitor numbers in November were 5.1 per cent lower than a year earlier. Arrivals from China and Japan dropped by about 20 per cent. …

Mr Hingerty is a member of the National Tourism Alliance, which will meet with staff from the office of federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson tomorrow to discuss a proposed stimulus package, worth $1 billion to $1.7 billion.

Mr Hingerty says Australians should be given tax incentives to take their holiday leave. "We have 121 million days of leave stored up," he said.

"One of the ideas is to have a $40-a-day tax rebate for people who take their leave, or allow people to salary sacrifice a holiday package within their own country.

"That will help us trade our way out of our problems. We don't need a handout. We need some clever government policies to innovate into new markets and to innovate with some new programs to get people to go on holidays in their own country."

Wow; We don't need a handout. We need some clever government policies, …. sounds like they really know the sort of language needed to get those politicians thinking of kudos.