Bonuses allowed by stimulus bill (CNN outs Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd)

cnn ^ | 3/18/2009 | Dana Bash and Ted Barrett

[tobyhill]

Democratic leaders scrambling to strip AIG executives of bonuses are having a hard time answering a key question: Why didn't Congress act to prevent the bonuses in the first place?

"There's always more we can do, and hindsight is 20/20," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Tuesday.

But though some lawmakers did move to prevent bonuses in the stimulus bill last month, the final language actually makes an exception for pre-existing contracts, effectively exempting AIG.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who originally proposed the executive compensation provision, said he did not include the exemption clause, which said new rules "shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009."

In an interview with CNN, Dodd denied inserting that exemption at the 11th hour, and insisted he doesn't know how it got there.

"When I wrote the language there was no such language like that," Dodd told CNN Tuesday.

[eureka!]

Great investigative skills al-CNN. I guess these facts took 3 days to get spun for the JournoList. Dishonest tools, the lot of you...

[angkor]

>>>>> It’s a small piece of the whole puzzle. Just chipping away the veneer one panel at a time in hopes to finally show America the corruption they elected. <<<<<

At least you are in complete agreement with Harry Reid and Zer0 Obama.

Who was it that gave AIG the $150 billion?

[tobyhill]

If they're in full support of exposing Government corruption then I'm with them but I doubt they really want to expose themselves.
I guarantee Obama won't have a free ride to pass anymore so-called stimulus money and companies now have less of an incentive to actually take knowing they'll be hammered for taking any bonus they deserve or not.