Friday, March 20, 2009
Politics / Woods Blackburn: It's 'Un-American' to Tax AIG Bonuses
Posted by Jeff Woods on Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 8:09 AM
"I share my constituent's outrage over the AIG situation. It seems we are throwing good taxpayer money after bad to save a company that may be unsalvageable. My opposition to continued federal bailouts has been, in part, because they don't contain the kind of safeguards that could have prevented this. Indeed, we have learned after the fact that the White House stripped those safeguards from the latest Stimulus Bill." "There is no question that the whole situation is repulsive. That said, this bill sets a big government precedent that is deeply troubling. The idea that Congress can express its displeasure at an individual taxpayer by micro-targeting them and taxing them into oblivion is unacceptable, if not un-American, in my eyes. Especially since most Democrats in Congress voted to allow the bonuses to continue." "Our economy is in real trouble. I spent this morning hearing from small business owners from Tennessee and around the country who were sharing their recommendations to get the economy going again. Instead of focusing on those, House leaders engaged in a week long distraction over a crisis largely of their own creation. Our President and his partisans in Congress had full knowledge of these bonuses before they were paid out, and behind closed doors made the conscious decision not to stop them. Once again the rhetoric of this Administration; the promises of transparency, accountability, and responsible government fade like so many lines on a teleprompter before the harsh light of reality."
Comments (7)
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Anybody who says $165,000,000.00 is peanuts is a jerk! I have an idea for recapturing some money: let's confiscate congressional salaries! Spread the word! Fire Congress! Kick the bums out! They've got to go! NOW! Single file, out of the U.S. Capitol, in handcuffs and leg irons! We might as well have Snoop Dogg and Britney Spears passing laws, they couldn't possibly do any worse. We can bring immediate relief to all of the nation's "problems" by shutting Congress down! They don't solve anything, they create chaos! And I'm still waiting to see Wacko Baracko's birth certificate!
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The whole thing is a joke.
The Obama administration and the Congressional dems were responsible for the legislation that authorized paying those bonuses. They knew about beforehand and only starting squawking when the info started leaking out to the general public. It's nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention from their own responsibilty for it.
They hauled the new head of AIG before Congress for a Stalinist style show trial. The man wasn't at AIG when those contracts were negotiated and had nothing to do with them. He only took that job at the request of the government in the first place and the thanks he gets for it is to be made a Congressional whipping boy at their little show trial.
The bonuses are a miniscule amount of the bailout money going to AIG. A far larger amount got passed through to Goldman Sachs, hedge funds and foreign banks. It seems they're trying to divert attention away from that as well.
Marsha Blackburn is a joke. The people in her district need to wise up and cast the witch out.
That's a tough choice for the whitest woman in America - vote the wishes of her district or the wishes of tax fetishish Grover Norquist.
Gilbert, can't lay this at the feet of the Obama administration. AIG revealed the bonus plan in filings last September. In November, Treasury (Bush Admins) and Fed officials negotiated the terms of these retention payments; and in December, Democrats called for a hearing on the bonuses.
Oh yes I can lay it at the feet of the Obama administration.
Authorization to pay them was part of the so-called "stimulus" bill that Obama said we just had to have. The Dems voted for it and Obama signed it.
Gilbert is right. The AIG decision is on Obama's and the Democrat's plate. But now the Dems have Chris Dodd to point at and punish as their own scapegoat. Pelosi continues to make cowardly, assinine statements regarding the House's role in the passage of the bill. The never ending posturing and sliding is making a bad situation sicker.
Blackburn is also right. The current slate of AIG execs who stayed with the sinking ship were promised a lifeboat to keep them from jumping. It was the current administration who knew this and used Dodd as the sleeper author to add the "language" as they call it.
