The Administration’s Response to the AIG Bonuses Smell Like Desperation
The administration has found a new villain on which to focus the public’s attention while it rummages around to see if there’s some other hoary economic policy from the 1930s it can dust off and slap onto our recession.
Today’s bogeyman is AIG, which decided to honor the contracts it has with its employees and give them the $165 million in bonuses they earned with their hard work. The White House (along with a suddenly compliant Mitch McConnell) responded with unfocused outrage then sicced the Attorney General of New York on the people who earned the bonuses.
That last bit sticks in my craw. There is no allegation, not even so much at a hint, of illegal behavior. Andrew Cuomo and the White House do not like that the bonuses, which amount to about less than a thousandth of the $170 billion the Federal government gave AIG, were given at all. And so law enforcement is now involved, not to investigate evidence of a crime, but to fish around in the hopes of finding something they can use to justify their own bad judgment. Normally, a move like this would draw the ire of the MSM but this is a new age isn’t it? The old rules don’t much apply.
This fishing expedition and faked outrage seems little more than an attempt to hide the administration’s own incompetence. Jake Tapper reported today that the White House, in the form of Robert Gibbs, said very clearly two weeks ago it knew what AIG had done with the first batch of $150 billion dollars it was given. We’re seeing today that Gibbs was woefully misinformed (or was just lying, but I’ll assume the former) and the administration is going to take its anger out on AIG’s hide.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Congress Screws Up Its Oversight Role Yet Again
- Meet Your New White House Press Secretary Who Also Does a Great Puffer Fish Impression
- It’s Not Hypocrisy — He’s Just Better than You!
Category: President Barack Obama, The Economy and Your Money
If they had any brains, they'd have devised another "chapter" for the bankruptcy law…one that basically said "if the government is on the hook for bailing you out, all existing contract negotiations are null and void, and must be renegotiated and approved by the government before being put into effect." Right now, that happens if you go into bankruptcy court, but for some reason, going to bankruptcy court is a major no no – the earth will tumble. So how about a _special_ category – one just for government bailouts – but not _called_ "bankruptcy". They always think of something else to call things they don't want to admit to – I'm sure they can come up with some nice name…