Michelle Malkin » Chris Dodd: For AIG bonuses before he was against them

Chris Dodd: For AIG bonuses before he was against them

By Michelle Malkin • March 17, 2009 11:22 AM

Kabuki Theater of Outrage, Act III. Unscrupulous borrower Sen. Chris Dodd struts on stage. Fox Business reporter Rich Edson turns on the spotlight:

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG: 0.9768, 0.1967, 25.21%) bonus recipients so the government could recoup the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.

Also, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org.

Need to make my airsickness bag triple-strength this morning.

Update: David Freddoso has more…

Here is the loophole, from the section of the stimulus package that deals with compensation rules for TARP recipients:

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.

Frankly, it’s hard to imagine how the government could prevent such contracts from being honored. But the presence of this loophole, in black and white, certainly gives the lie to all of this phony outrage — by the senator who created the loophole, by the president who signed it into law, and by everyone else who voted for the stimulus package.

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Posted in: AIG,Chris Dodd

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#101

On March 17th, 2009 at 9:46 pm, jangar said:

See how wonderful us Democrats are in being such good stewards of your wealth?

Bunch of sh!ta$$e$
#102

On March 17th, 2009 at 10:19 pm, faraway said:

..
Obama signed the AIG bonuses into law
#103

On March 17th, 2009 at 10:35 pm, detolbert said:

Why isn’t this a top story?
It’s on a couple of places, but that’s all. Very small story in Washington Times

Obama disarming pilots on airlines….
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/king-hussein-bans-guns-from-american-pilots-on-commercial-planes/
#104

On March 17th, 2009 at 11:08 pm, corona said:

many of the employees who received bonuses are not American
#105

On March 17th, 2009 at 11:28 pm, DannoJyd said:

AAAHHH! I just love the smell of fear that is coming from the democrats as they work feverishly at defending their blatant stupidity.

I expect we’ll be hearing more ‘Bush did it’, and ‘Rush limbaugh’ in the coming days. Too bad for them that their excuses are falling on deaf ears.
#106

On March 18th, 2009 at 12:28 am, ITookTheRedPill said:

Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions
#107

On March 18th, 2009 at 4:54 am, graysonret said:

All I see is a government muscling into big business with “bailouts”, in order to eventually, nationalize them. I wonder how long it will be before every corporation has a senator/congressmen who reviews each decision the board would like to make…to protect us citizens, of course. The people are going to wake up, one morning, and no longer find a democratic republic with capitalism, as they “march” off to work, doing the job picked for them, by the local “chiefs”. We almost had that under “hillarycare”, where, we in the medical field, would have been told what field we were needed in…not what we wanted to do.
#108

On March 18th, 2009 at 10:08 am, corona said:

Sorry, but MM got it wrong this time. Dodd wrote the amendment to stop the bonuses – he did not put in the exemption.

from WSJ: (entire article not available free online)

The most stringent pay restriction bars any company receiving funds from paying top earners bonuses equal to more than one-third of their total annual compensation. That could severely crimp pay packages at big banks, where top officials commonly get relatively modest salaries but often huge bonuses.

As word spread Friday about the new and retroactive limit — inserted by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut — so did consternation on Wall Street and in the Obama administration, which opposed it.

Also see this.
#109

On March 18th, 2009 at 10:09 am, corona said:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who initially proposed adding executive compensation and bonus limits to the stimulus bill, did not include the exception.

Yes, your favorite “newspaper of record”.