Alice Through the Looking Glass – Tax AIG to Oblivion!
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 19, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
Wrote, then unwrote, AIG bonus loophole: Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn
Forget that the bailout specifically protected those bonuses… the rules are now changed. Forget that AIG revealed their contracts to members of Congress to uphold paying those bonuses… the government needs a scapegoat, so all previous AIG transparency is null and void. Forget that employees at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the fraud-ridden institutions that started this entire financial mess before Obama was crowned) also received bonuses that were paid for with bailout monies… while the House says they and others will also be taxed, there are too many congressional weasels involved with them who are “too big to fail.” If Congress promises to tax Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that’s the new “Big-Brother-Speak of 2009″ for “diddly-squat will happen to them.”
Since promises, contracts, and signed bills are meant to be tossed out and hastily rewritten these days whenever circumstances permit, believing that a promise from Washington, DC will be honored is utterly naive. “Vee have vays to make you suffer.”
Through the Looking Glass - Nancy 'Red Queen' Pelosi: 'Off with their heads!'
Outraged or not over the bonuses, AIG broke no laws. Congress doesn’t care. Tim “Wonder-Blunder Boy and Tax Cheat” Geithner and Chris “Every Word I Say Is a Lie” Dodd, along with Pelosi, Reid, and Frank, royally screwed up the writing of the bill, so AIG must be made into a public laughingstock, a doomed example. Who’s next in this unleashed government power grab?
Dangerous ground here. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are thrashing about in their graves with disgust.
From Michelle Malkin:
The House is scheduled to vote today on a bill that would levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at companies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money.
“We figured that the local and state governments would take care of the other 10 percent,” said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel said the bill would apply to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among others, while excluding community banks and other smaller companies that have received less bailout money…The top two members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday announced a bill that would impose a 35 percent excise tax on the companies paying the bonuses and a 35 percent excise tax on the employees receiving them. The taxes would apply to all companies receiving government bailout money, but they are clearly geared toward AIG.
From the NY Post:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, given an opening by the anger over the $165 million in bonuses paid to AIG bigs, says the House will suspend its rules today and vote to impose a confiscatory 90 percent income tax on the AIG bonuses and perhaps those given after Dec. 31 to top executives at all companies that got more than $5 billion in government bailout money.
Similar legislation is in the works in the Senate, and a bill could pass as early as next week.
Talk about overreach.
From OpenMarket.org:
Before publicly blasting million-dollar bonuses at AIG, the Obama administration privately signed off on those very bonuses, and included language in the economy-shrinking “stimulus” bill to protect those bonuses. (AIG gave over $100,000 to Obama, and $280,000 to Chris Dodd (D-CT) the head of the Senate Banking Committee, who inserted the language into the bill, and then lied about it). Yet the Administration is trying to deceive the public about when it first became aware of the AIG bonuses, claiming it first learned about them less than a week before they became public.
Yesterday, liberal lawmakers hypocritically blasted the bonuses in front of TV cameras, on the same day that they voted behind closed doors to protect those bonuses. Today, however, lawmakers want to levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses, without limiting them to the AIG bonuses.
From Rush Limbaugh’s March 23 radio show: “We don’t have a Constitution anymore. Do you realize that if they can just singularly disregard the Constitution with this 90% retroactive tax on bonus payments, they can discard the Constitution anytime they want?”
The Washington Times notes that “The Obama administration and one of its key allies in Congress belatedly acknowledged Wednesday that they were responsible more than a month ago for clearing the way for large bonuses to be paid inside taxpayer-supported companies like AIG, undercutting the White House’s attempts to distance itself from a growing political embarrassment.”
Several hard-hitting postings from commentary-extraordinaire Michelle Malkin:
First, they came for AIG bonuses
Putting on a great show: Kabuki in the House; Update: 328-93, 90 percent bonus tax passes
Look beyond the bogus bonus smokescreen
Wall Street Journal: Obama’s AIG Panic
NY Post: Courting Catastrophe
Jane Q. Republican: Harry Reid Loves The Oldies
Peace and Freedom Global Future: “Dodd The Dodge” — Senator Weasels Away The Truth; And Not Artfully
Open Market.org: Bonuses for Fannie & Freddie; AIG Lies from Obama; Fed Explodes Money Supply, Risking Stagflation
From the Pen: Barney Frank: Cowardly Communist Lion
Peace and Freedom Global Future: Lawmaking by Stampede Made the Stimulus, Now We’ll Tax ‘Bonuses’ the Stimulus Allowed?
Yahoo! Finance: Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG
Fastidious: What I’m Politicing: AIG and Rush Limbaugh
NY Times: Connecticut Senator Draws Voters’ Ire for His Bonus Role
Vets On The Watch: No Contract Need Be Honored, Says Fed
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