House Republicans Planning To Try To Force Treasury To Recoup AIG Bonuses
Looks like House Republicans are about to make a big political move on the AIG issue by trying to compel the Treasury Department to try to recoup those AIG bonuses
A senior GOP aide familiar with ongoing discussions tells me that two freshman Republicans — at the direction of Eric Cantor and other House GOP leaders — will introduce a bill to “direct” Treasury to recoup the bonuses. The two Republicans are Rep. Paulsen of Minnesota and Rep. Lance of New Jersey.
The Obama administration has effectively said that it will be hard to recoup those bonuses, and it wasn’t immediately clear how the bill’s mechanics would force Treasury to do this. House Republicans will hold a presser at 3 PM today to unveil the details.
Either way, this could have the immediate effect of putting the issue on the political front burner as a partisan issue. It’s an effort to position the Republicans as the ones who are leading a populist rebellion against AIG and are trying to wrest those bonuses back — or at least to compel Treasury to do the people’s will in this regard.
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Didn’t several Democratic representative and Senators already file bills that offered ways to do that (aka 100% taxation bill) ? Why is this move any different ?
well, this would literally try to compel the Treasury Department to do this somehow. The taxation bill wouldn’t work this way, would it?
Someone should have passed John Kyl the memo
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/santelli-sen-kyl-push-bac_n_175691.html
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Oooh. This reminds me of when the Republicans pushed Bush to recoup money wasted by KBR and other defense contractors.
More than likely the repubs will continue to call names, point fingers and whine. When it comes to taking serious concrete action, they’re useless. I expect grandstanding and drama, but nothing constructive from them.
Where were the repubs when the money was given out over the past eight years. They are a little late to the party– it’s too bad all they can do is be partisan since this issue is one that needs to be solved on both sides of the aisle and it goes far beyond the symbolism of these bonuses.
Oooh. This reminds me of when the Republicans pushed Bush to recoup money wasted by KBR and other defense contractors.
O me too. And wasn’t it just great how they yelled about the 9 billion dollars that just went missing in Iraq? What would we do without the fraking Republicans?
For starters, we might not be broke.
But how will they work cutting taxes into the bill?
>Where were the repubs when the money was given out over the past eight years.
Democrats have controlled the purse strings in both houses of Congress since January 2007 (coincidentally, the first year the market began tanking). They’ve been writing fiscal policy since 2007, and the most recent spendulus bills and AIG bailouts were authorized by Democrats.
In addition, these failing banks all have given a total of about $3.1 million to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Considering that Obama is now just funneling taxpayer money into these banks to the tune of tens of billions of dollars whenever they demand it, I think the banks got a good return on that political investment. Don’t you?
What was it you were whining about with the culture of corruption again? Oh, that’s right. You didn’t have anything of note to say. The GOP’s long gone, son. Time to step up to the plate and OWN THE STORE.
Bad politics. Leave it to the Democrats to enact ex post facto laws or bills of attainder. Republicans shouldn’t go there. When the Government took over AIG without AIG going through bankruptcy (if owning 80% doesn’t count as a takeover, I don’t know what does…), the Government assumed AIG’s responsibilities as well as its assets.
If I were one whose retention bonus was taken away, I’d go to work for a competitor and trade into the weak underbelly of AIG. It would serve the Government right.
FALLOUT GROWS: Those who voted for the stimulus, supported the clause to protect the AIGs bonuses. Obama’s Own Stimulus Bill Protects the AIG Bonuses He Now Condemns —
http://www.butasforme.com/2009/03/17/obamas-stimulus-bill-explicitly-grants-aig-the-legal-right-to-hand-out-bonuses/
We need to remember that when Dems wanted to attach caps on salaries and bonuses to the tarp, the repubs shouted to the heavens that it was too much government intervention. Maybe some news organizations should report this too.
Need I say that Arrogances and self awareness seldom goes hand and hand? Nevertheless, this is what we have been getting from the fools in Washington and the Rush Limbaugh’s for decades. They are like a band of marauders, plundering and pillaging as they destroy everything within their sight, and aren’t they the idiots that we trusted with legislating the laws to protect us from this kind of mess. We don’t care who they officially have in charge right now. Because the next time we go into the voting booth, it wouldn’t be based on some stupid ideology that continues to allow our wallet to be made in China and India, while wondering where our money and job have gone! I guess we can regretfully say that the joke is on us? Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger. Perhaps the Republican Party doesn’t care who the messenger is, because they continue to mostly blame everyone but themselves, as our Country slowly whittle away from their incompetents.
Here is my take on this matter; earlier today on the usual morning news shows, I heard everyone complaining about how ferociously our economy was on fire. Needless to say, that when the economy was being put on fire, everyone watched, as we heard little to nothing from anyone. So if you agree that the Republican Party was the arsonists, and has now become the fiendish Party of No. No meaning, I’m not going to help you put the fire out. While you must agree that the Media are the Party of the chaos agents. They both like to spread fear, and create as much panic and controversy as they can at every given opportunity. They both like to get a kick out of quoting this Country most clairvoyant individual, or should I say the most automatons figures. I don’t know how you feel about this, but to me they both are running this Country in the ground with their, me first, white-knuckle like attitude.
The Republican Party has been put on the life support machine by the People during the last two elections, but it appears that the media want to keep them alive. Somewhere along the line, the words like fair and balance, honesty and integrity got lost. This is not meant to be an indictment, but design merely as a fair and reasonable observation.
Just take a look at this: when the exit polls came out the night of the election that showed John Kerry ahead of George Bush 51% to 48%, the market drop immediately. After finding out that the exit polls was wrong, the market turned around immediately. This tells you that the market loves the Republicans, and here’s why, they know that the rich is going to get richer under a Republican administration, while allowing the poor to get poorer. Free trade is the code words for allowing big corporations to ship jobs oversea for cheaper wages, and sell their goods back to us for a bigger profit. Don’t be fooled, they are selling this Country out, It’s that Simple folks!
What about Michael Moore doing an Oscar-winning documentary about the health care system in Europe, Canada and other places around the world that show how we are really getting screwed around. It makes you wonder where CNN, FOX and MSNBC along with all the other supposedly reputable outlets have been on this matter. I guess big business has made them go from being the big Media to become the big Jerks. In closing: If CNN find it important to ask us about anything that Dick Cheney had to say, they need to change the title of their show to, BS me, I don’t care. CNN allowed Dick Cheney to spread his mess around the world. Where were the tough follow up question, huh? That was an extremely piss poor moderating performance by John King, and what we are now starting to see from everyone else.
HAHAHA…Faux news pinhead and conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg has both castigated Obama for wanting to recoup the AIG bonuses, saying that we are a nation of laws and that contracts should be honored. I want to hear their explanation for why their Republican brethren are now officially calling for the same thing!!!
Oops, that should be “Faux news pinhead SEAN HANNITY”…
The House republicans are mostly gutless cowards without any relevant ideas of their own. There will be fewer of them after 2010 and the country will be better off.
The Republicans know what they have to do to get on top of the situation and a “stunt” like this is a huge waste of time. Dodd had the exemption for this right in his bill so why is everyone so surprised. Every member of Congress could be charged as petty thieves. They are lower than dirt.
My brother would fall in love this website. We were not too long ago discussing about this. lol