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.
Why are Republicans letting him get away with it?
President Obama rammed through the stimulus bill — over Republican objections — that explicitly protected the AIG bonuses.
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.
Not a single House Republican voted for this bill and only three Republicans in the Senate did. Obama owns it.
Either Obama did not know the provision was in there, which validates the Republican point that no one read this bill. Or he did, and signed it anyway. Either way, it’s a disaster of his making.
We should lay responsibility for the AIG bonuses where it belongs — directly at the president’s feet.
A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)