Look beyond the bogus bonus smokescreen
My syndicated column today tallies up all the craptacular spending that’s been going on while the AIG-bashing hypocrites on the Hill crow about $165 million in corporate bonuses none of them bothered to stop before they rushed to fork over billions to AIG in the first place. I mention the little-noticed $6 billion GIVE Act, which just passed the House — and which looks like the very kind of Soros Slush Fund I warned about last summer. Also note the rising cost of the $2 trillion cap-and-trade scheme, which vigilant GOP Sen. James Inhofe has been red-flagging.
Bonus issue = Kabuki theater of mass distraction. Keep your eye on the ball.
(And this just in, via HA Headlines: “U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said on Thursday he expects federal deficit spending will be about $1.6 trillion greater over the next ten years than President Barack Obama’s budget plan forecasts. Obama submitted his budget outline to Congress last month which forecast almost $7 trillion in deficits through 2019, however a worsening economic picture is expected to make the budget outlook darker. Conrad told reporters that the additional $1.6 trillion over the next decade was based on projections of the Democratic majority’s budget committee staff.”
***
Look beyond the bogus bonus smokescreen
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
“We will hunt you down!” thundered Colorado Democrat Rep. Jared Polis during the AIG bonus demagogue-a-thon on the House floor Thursday. “If they’re not going to give [the bonuses] back, we’re going to take them back!” growled Alabama Dem. Artur Davis, who vowed to recover the taxpayers’ “ill-gotten gains” from rogue corporate executives. House Republicans pressed the Democrats on who knew what and when regarding the AIG bonus protections included in Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd’s now-infamous amendment to the stimulus bill. Rep. Barney Frank shrieked about the Bush administration’s culpability. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi smugly patted Democrats on the back for “protecting the national interest.”
I ask you now to turn away from the bogus bonus smokescreen over $165 million in taxpayer-backed compensation packages for AIG employees. It is a pittance compared to the gargantuan spending spree happening right under our noses. The AIG bonus price tag amounts to one-tenth of one percent of the total AIG giveaway ($85 billion in September, $37.8 billion in October; $40 billion in November; $30 billion in early March, which took place with the assent of a Republican administration, a Democrat administration, and the congressional leadership of both parties.
Taxpayers might be less skeptical of the born-again guardians of fiscal responsibility if these evangelists were actually practicing what they preached. While the Obama administration now issues impassioned calls to stop rewarding failure, they moved Thursday to dump another $5 billion into the failing auto industry. That’s on top of the Thursday announcement by the Federal Reserve to print up $1 trillion to buy up Treasury bonds and mortgage securities sold by the government — that no one else wants to buy.
Financial blogger Barry Ritholtz tallied up $8.5 trillion in bailout costs by December 2008 between the Federal Reserve, FDIC, Treasury, and Federal Housing Administration rescues (not including the $5.2 trillion in Fannie/Freddie portfolios that the US taxpayer is now also explicitly responsible for.) Then there’s the (at least) $50 billion proposed by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in February to bail out home owners and lenders who made bad home loan decisions, which would be just a small sliver of the $2.5 trillion he wants to spend on the next big banking bailout, which would draw on the second $350 billion of the TARP package over which an increasing number of Chicken Little lawmakers are having buyer’s remorse.
Phew. We’re not done yet. Also on Thursday: As AIG-bashing lawmakers inveighed against wasted taxpayer funds and lamented the lack of accountability and rush to judgment that led to passage of the porkulus bill that mysteriously protected the bonuses, the Senate quietly passed a $10 billion lands bill stuffed with earmarks and immunized from amendments. GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, fiscal conservative loner, pointed out that none of the provisions for special-interest pork projects — including $3.5 million in spending for a birthday bash celebrating the city of St. Augustine, Florida — were subject to public hearings. That’s on top of the pork-stuffed $410 billion spending bill passed two weeks ago.
Oh, and did I mention that the House passed a $6 billion volunteerism bill (the “GIVE Act”) on Wednesday to provide yet another pipeline to left-wing advocacy groups under the guise of encouraging national service? Also coming down the pike: The Obama administration’s “cap-and-trade” global warming plan, which Hill staffers learned this week could cost close to $2 trillion (nearly three times the White House’s initial estimate.) and the administration’s universal health care scheme, which health policy experts reported this week could cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade.
It is no wonder that when earlier this week Vice President Joe Biden told local officials in Washington this week that he was “serious, absolutely serious” about policing wasteful porkulus spending in Washington (price tag: $800 billion not including interest), he was met with the only rational response his audience could muster:
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If they truly want to restrict bonuses to people who have caused havoc to the economy, Congress need look no further than Congress.
I wouldn’t mind the government recovering the bonuses if they intended to give it back to the taxpayers. Like that’s going to happen.
Seems to me this policy of making someone the scapegoat for all economic difficulties has been tried before. Maybe the Obama administration could try making all the “evil” bankers, Wall Street executives, and speculators all wear a Green Dollar cloth patch on their clothing (pink triangles and yellow star of Davids having been already taken). That way all the Democrats could easily tell who the “bad” guys are.
Yeh, give what back. Thats like a $.50 stimulus check to every person in the U.S.
Well, now that I think about it. I’ve never known what a stimulus check is, because I’ve never gotten one. So $.50 would be a nice little surprise in the mailbox. (But arent stamps $.42 these days?)
So when poor people use their stimulus checks to buy cigarettes, booze and drugs, is that really helping out the economy anyway?
A.I.G. Taking us all on Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/03/aig-taking-us-all-on-mr-toads-wild-ride.html
I was thinking more along the line of give it ALL back. Ever since they passed the income tax amendment and created all those God forsaken government programs. If they really wanted to help us out they’d cut the budget.
I’m thinkin’ there’s a whole log of Obama voters who wish they could do the same thing with their votes right now.
Too bad regular citizens, unlike Congress, are constrained from changing their minds.
This all reminds me of the witch scene from Monty Python (what doesn’t, really…).
They create the witch, then they want to destroy her for being a witch. Sorry it’s so looooong.
1. raise your hand if you made $165 million last year? $1 million? Now maybe that’s not a lot of money for congressmen spending trillions, but for the rest of us it is.
2. no one in the media notes the hypocrisy of congress complaining about AIG bonuses when they just voted themselves automatic pay raises …
People who think those bonuses need to be paid back are evil and anti-American. Those people did nothing wrong. Even if they did a lousy job, millions of people do that every day and still keep their jobs and get paid for it. Look at congress if you don’t believe me.
These people took a job in good faith and expected what they were promised. Harping about how much they earned is just jealousy. I make less than $30k a year and I say God bless ‘em.
Why is it that CEOs and bankers get the, “oh i can’t believe they make that much; that’s just crazy; nobody should make that much” speeches and yet actors, writers, athletes, retired politicians and nascar drivers make tons more and that’s fine? I guess the difference is that they look good doing it.
Grow up.