Chris Dodd and White House Back-peddles about AIG bonuses

The controversial bonuses given to executives at AIG, which received $173 billion in government bailouts over the past six months is reaching a new high of deception. Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Banking Committee, admits today that he allowed the bonus payments to AIG CEO’s, after conferring with the U.S. Treasurer Department. What say ye, White House? Yesterday, Chris Dodd said he didn’t know anything about the approval; adding an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. Now he wants to tax the bonuses on his executive-compensation restriction.

When Senator Dodd was asked about the loophole language modification on March 17, 2009, he said that he had “absolutely nothing” to do with “when that language left the senate--that was not included.” This is not a mistake; it’s the worst case of “struggling with the truth” that I’ve ever heard. He created the bonus loophole for AIG that provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.”

What do you think is the proximate cause of the collapse of confidence in the world's banks? Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are your key figures. How many times will we see Chris Dodd vacillating with the truth?

Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle, receiving $103,100, according to opensecrets.org. By the way, Barack Obama received the second highest contribution from AIG at the tune of $101,332.00.

Obama says he is outraged about this whole idea of AIG bonuses. OK, so now what? He says it is symptom of a more enormous problem of people getting paid so much---is this “spreading the wealth” language? Today, from Costa Mesa, California, Obama said that we need to fix and change the way we handle this problem, with regulations that don’t allow companies to hold us hostage. However, he was pretty clear that he didn’t know how long this was going to take, but we need to get passed this “petty bickering.”

Oprah Winfrey said it best; “everybody wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you need is somebody who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”