On Politics, We Can Always See the Whites of Their Eyes.
Stimulus Explicitly Protects Bonuses Obama Now "Laments"
by: Bill Dupray posted: 2009-03-17 17:36:00
Viewed 664 times. 10 Comments.
Hey Barry, this was your bag of manure. Maybe if you had read the thing before you signed it, you wouldn't have to pretend that AIG somehow violated your law.
From But As For Me.
[W]e discovered that Obama granted AIG a free legal pass to give high bonuses because of the following stipulation in Obama’s stimulus bill he personally orchestrated and signed into law: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.”
This amendment provides an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009, which exempts the very AIG bonuses Obama is condemning every single chance he gets. The amendment is in the final version and is law.
So all of Obama's bleating and faux anger about the bonuses appears to be rooted in regret over either his own incompetence or getting caught in a poltical sh*t-storm of his own making. Or both.
Either way it makes his statement from yesterday ring a little hollow now.
"This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed," Obama told a group of small business owners."I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"
Mr. President, they justify it by following your law.
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Comments 10
The problem is, as usual, why doesn't somebody in the MSM just ask Obama point blank, "Didn't the stimulus allow these bonuses, and, if so, isn't that your mistake, Mr. President, for allowing them, not AIG's for taking them?"
Nah, that would be asking them to do their jobs. Far too tall an order in the Age of Obama.
Oh sure they can go ahead and submit that question for pre-approval ahead of the scripted faux press conference, but that question will never make it through the pre-screening special selection process.
It's worth noting that this little gem was inserted into the Stimulus by none other than Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and paid for by the generous campaign contributions he receives from AIG and its employees.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats knows no bounds.
That's fine. The more press he gets, the more the GOP has a chance to pick him off next year. It has been a while since we have seen (R. CT) after a Senator's name.
BTW, is your governor going to lose in the fall?
Man, I sure hope Corzine loses in November. He's trailing former US Attorney Chris Christie by 10+ points in the polls right now. The problem with the NJ GOP is they almost always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. There is so much infighting they can't articulate a consistent message. The leadership is dominated by RINOs and the rank and file who vote in primaries are overwhelmingly conservative. So if a conservative candidate emerges from the primary the leadership only gives him half-hearted support.
WYBLOG................Here's a story on those campaign contributions you mentioned.
The story "Obama Receives $101,332 Bonus from AIG" can be found at:
www.redstate.com/california_yankee/2009/03/17/obama-received-a-101332-bonus-from-aig/
Hold the phone! Yesterday I was demanding the head of Dodd on a platter, but today...
It actually is being reported in Salon that Dodd is being double crossed and scapegoated by the WH covering its own ass.
” The accusation against Dodd is that there is nothing the Obama administration can do about the AIG bonus payments because Dodd inserted a clause into the stimulus bill which exempted executive compensation agreements entered into before February, 2009 from the compensation limits imposed on firms receiving bailout funds. Thus, this accusation asserts, it was Dodd’s amendment which explicitly allowed firms like AIG to make bonus payments that were promised before the stimulus bill was enacted.
That is simply not what happened. What actually happened is the opposite. It was Dodd who did everything possible — including writing and advocating for an amendment — which would have applied the limitations on executive compensation to all bailout-receiving firms, including AIG, and applied it to all future bonus payments without regard to when those payments were promised. But it was Tim Geithner and Larry Summers who openly criticized Dodd’s proposal at the time and insisted that those limitations should apply only to future compensation contracts, not ones that already existed. The exemption for already existing compensation agreements — the exact provision that is now protecting the AIG bonus payments — was inserted at the White House’s insistence and over Dodd’s objections. But now that a political scandal has erupted over these payments, the White House is trying to deflect blame from itself and heap it all on Chris Dodd by claiming that it was Dodd who was responsible for that exemption.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/17/dodd/
Wow, eh?
The legislation apparently originally passed with Sen. Olympia Snowe's (RINO - ME) amendment banning the bonuses. According to this, http://tinyurl.com/dcowmj , Geithner and the White House got the Dems to drop it in the middle of the night. Dodd claims it wasn't him. If it wasn't, did someone from his office do it? He's the banking guy for crying out loud. He's the boss. He takes the fall for not getting it back in.
Most importantly, we need the name of the person who stripped it out, just so we know where to place the tar and feathers. Why don't we start applying tar to Dodd until he talks?
Do you think that if maybe any of anyone in Congress had actually READ the Stimulus Bill before voting for it that just maybe someone would have some idea what it did or didn't say....???
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Bill, I am so glad that people are picking up on this detail. The administration and Dems in Congress are yelling and screaming about AIG because they want us to mad at "those evil businessmen," not at the politicians who crafted this mess.