Weasal words ALL - but the Obama and the Dems OWN this ALL - Granite Grok

Weasal words ALL – but the Obama and the Dems OWN this ALL

Filed under Character – for the severe LACK of character shown by both sides of the aisle with respect of our political leaders concerning the bonuses at AIG!  The outright and blatant CYA actions of our self-enriched politicians is just stunning. The Rule of Law, at least in the Senate and the House, has devolved to the Rule of the Political Elites who put their all-too-shabby reputations into the kleig lights the last few days.  As Andy McCarthy from NRO said:

We are a nation of laws which has lost sight of the fact that law is not an end in itself but a means to functioning, self-determining republic.  It’s a means to regular politics, not a weapon of the political class to thwart accountability and whip the scape goats.

The Rule of Law – one of the pillars of our society has been pillaged by those that are supposed to safeguard it. We may not like this bonus issue, and AIG may be overwhelming owned by us (the taxpayers), but that does not give any politician to run rampant just to grab headlines or sound bites.  We expect them to act with decorum with serious discussion about changes to the law and its long term consequences to the American people after judicious debate which is NOT what we have been getting.

Instead, we get the "Clowns of Congress" all vying for the next spot on the Jerry Springer show, each competing with the next to condemn the bailout companies with greater and greater vitriol – and succeed only in casting stones and ashes upon themselves with their antics.  Instead of measured speech and though, we’re ending up with this:

But that said, the bonuses certainly appear to be bad deals which government, eyes open, got us into — just like a bad treaty or any other bad law.  In our system, the remedy for that is to hold the policy making officials accountable at the ballot box — not to have the policy making officials abuse the enormous power with which they’ve been entrusted to try to expunge their fingerprints from the choices they’ve made, or turn the beneficiaries of their bad policies, ex post facto, into crooks.

It doesn’t help that the general public doesn’t understand the difference between a performance bonus (doing better than expected by bringing more profit into the company) and a retention bonus (smaller salary now with a golden handcuff payment at the end of the time period – leave before that date and you lose the money).

All we see is politicians, as usual, exploiting a faux crisis.  While the amounts of money being thrown around are absolutely staggering (at times, I can hardly wrap my mind around the totals that are so blithely flung around like nickels and dimes [which I can understand]), it is the "crisis" that is driving me crazy. Why?  The dog that isn’t barking:

It is simple – have you noticed that NO government politician, appointee, or

employee has acknowledged any fault AT ALL on the part of the Government?

None at all?

Obama and socialists world wide must be loving this – what a way to allow the US to kill itself!

Yes, government knew about it.  The Democrats (and the 3 RINO Senators) OWN this – it was Obama, Pelosi, and Reid’s leadership for this fiasco – the Porkulus. They OWN it.  Nobody but the Dems in the House voted for it. They OWN it.  All of the Democrat Senators voted for it. They OWN it.

Here is the language from  page H1412 of the final stimulus bill, SEC. 111. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE:

(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.

And this was known for a long time:

Federal Reserve officials knew for months about bonuses at American International Group but failed to tell the Obama administration, according to government and company officials, exposing problems in a relationship that is vital to addressing the financial crisis.

As pressure mounted on AIG employees to return the bonuses, new details emerged yesterday about what the Fed, the Treasury Department and the White House knew regarding the payments and when. AIG executives said the Fed was informed three months ago by the company that it would pay $165 million by March 15 to employees working at its most troubled division. The Treasury and White House said they learned of the payments from Fed officials only days before they were due.

All this angst for something that they voted for!  This is a prime example as to why "comprehensive" bills are WRONG – nobody reads it, nobody takes responsibility for it – until someone outside of Government calls them on it?  Charles Krauthammer:

the Democrats are the ones who passed the stimulus package, which had this provision in it. And they had told us that the stimulus was so important for saving the economy that it had to be rushed into law before Presidents’ Day, of course, leaving no one with any time to read it. So now they wake up. They read the bill that they had passed and begin excoriating AIG and others.

And they wonder why politicians have such low appeal with the general public?? It was their work, their responsibility, and they failed.  Obama engineered the need, engineered the speed – and the Dems plowed the way – to failure. And you have one LYING about it: Senator Chris Dodd, Democrat from Conn (who STILL hasn’t released the paperwork that got him special deals from Countrywide for his mortgage).  "NO, I didn’t do it"!  "No, I don’t know who did it"!  Oh wait!

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) – a top recipient of campaign donations from AIG employees – on Wednesday acknowledged that he agreed to weaken a provision that would have prevented the payout of bonuses such as those received by some AIG employees…

Dodd said the Obama administration made him do it: “I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment but I did so at the request of Administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG.” Dodd insists he was “completely unaware of these AIG bonuses” until last week

The Democrats are full of vitriol for the AIG staffers.  We should be returning it several-fold for LYING to US.  And for trying to switch the blame on someone else.

We caught you…a pox on both your houses!  And Obama – surely he’s taking responsibility for it, right?

President Obama has expressed outrage over the AIG bailouts. “I’m angry too,” he says. He wasn’t told by the Treasury secretary for days, the White House says.

Balderdash – he’s either lying or stupid.  And then while he says the buck stops here, with other words, he weasals his way out of it by saying his administration is not responsible.

The end result for this financial fiasco? Do they stand up and admit they are wrong?  Do they say "hey, we made a mistake"? Now that they are caught in not knowing the details of the bill THEY passed, and now looking like the jerks they are, they’re going all populist and using THE weapon we all fear the most – the IRS and the tax code:

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), himself under fire for alleged ethics violations (see story), is the author of a House bill that would impose additional, special taxes on those who received bonuses from companies that accepted taxpayer bailouts.
 
Employees of bailed-out companies who received bonuses after Dec. 31, 2008 – as stipulated in their contracts — would have 90 percent of the money taxed away under a bill that the House is expected to take up on Thursday.
 
"We figured that the local and state governments would take care of the other 10 percent," the Associated Press quoted Rangel as saying.

That’s right – since they are not going to give back what we allowed them to have (because we didn’t read the bill we passed), we’ll just TAX it from them!  Can anyone say "Bill of attainer" (think unconstitutional)?

Yuval Levin has THE observation:

As a general matter, the anger about the AIG bonuses is understandable and probably largely well-placed, but our elected officials really need to think before they speak, because they’re sending a message to the potential future investors and financial sector workers who will be crucial to a recovery that perfectly legal contractually arranged payments and profits are subject to arbitrary retroactive rescission at the whim of panicked politicians. These lawmakers are not fundamentally acting out of anger, they’re acting out of fear that they will be blamed, and some of the steps they are publicly contemplating are worse than the problem they’re trying to address.

The abrogation of valid contracts.  Politicians willing to throw ANYONE other than each other under the bus to get the spotlight off of them.  The absolute willingness to use any tool, especially the tax code, to do so? The Dems want government to control and emasculate capitalism, but what is the excuse for the loud mouth Republicans going against our ideals?  Oh my gosh!

For the financial system to recover, a certain type of investor and banker will have to take risks again, in the hope that they will be amply rewarded. To undercut that hope is to increase the risk and so to delay the recovery. That’s not to say that the AIG bonuses are not outrageous, but the severe and ugly overreaction we’re seeing (and especially the prospect of micro-targeted punitive taxation, let alone personal threats) is very bad for American capitalism.

And you want these sad sacks to continue to use the tax code to determine OUR behavior in the Land of the Free and the Brave and to use it to punish those that embarrass them for their own lack of correct decisions?

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