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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (464912)	3/19/2009 10:50:35 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1572970

Democrats’ Tacit Bonuses Approval May Undercut Rage (Update1) By Ryan J. Donmoyer bloomberg.com March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The outrage expressed by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress over $165 million in bonuses paid to American International Group Inc. may be undercut by their tacit approval of the payouts only a month ago. The $787 billion economic stimulus bill approved by Congress Feb. 13 and signed into law by Obama three days later contains language that effectively authorizes bonus arrangements at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts as long as they were in place before Feb. 11. The provision, on page 404 of the 407-page law, carves out those arrangements from new restrictions on pay at bailed-out companies that took effect with Obama’s signature. Now Obama and many of the same lawmakers who voted for the law, such as New York Senator Charles Schumer and Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, are demanding AIG employees surrender their bonuses. Dodd told CNN today he put the provision in the final version of the stimulus measure at the insistence of the administration, which was worried about lawsuits if existing compensation contracts were revoked. “The administration had expressed reservations,” Dodd told CNN. “They asked for modifications. The alternative was losing the amendment entirely.” The provision has proven awkward for Democrats who have led expressions of outrage in Congress this week, because most of them voted for the stimulus last month. No House Republicans and only three Senate Republicans voted for the stimulus measure. Closed Doors “The fact is that the bill the president signed, which protected the AIG bonuses and others, was written behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of the House and Senate,” Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley said in a statement today. “There was no transparency, so the only way the public will ever know who added the language to protect bailout company bonuses is if someone from the small group of Democrats in the room says so,” Grassley said. Schumer yesterday sent a letter to AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy warning him to return bonuses or face confiscatory taxes on them. The letter was signed by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and seven other senators. Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Schumer, said the senator “supported a provision on the Senate floor that would have prevented these types of bonuses, but he was not on the conference committee that negotiated the final language.” Final Negotiations Dodd spokeswoman Kate Szostak said yesterday the exception to Dodd’s executive-compensation restrictions was added during lawmakers’ final negotiations with the Treasury Department over the stimulus. She rejected Republicans’ suggestions the date was included to exempt the AIG bonuses. “Senator Dodd was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until he learned of them in the past few days,” said Szostak. “To suggest that the bonuses affecting AIG had any effect on Senator Dodd’s action is categorically false.” Other Democrats who voted for the stimulus bill have ramped up criticism this week of AIG’s bonuses, including Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who told reporters, “I think the time has come to exercise our ownership rights.” House leaders including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader also criticized AIG.