Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG

AP on Yahoo ^ | 3/18/09 | David Espo - ap

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON – For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG.

Republicans, struggling to regain their political footing, are content to let Democrats try to dig their way out of this mess on their own.

Professing shock at the bonus payments, Democrats have embarked on a hurry-up effort to impose what amounts to confiscatory taxes on the bonuses, ..

...

But the mood is less charitable among congressional Democrats.

[NormsRevenge]

So what does Obama do?

Send in the Shock TrooPinks, of course.

A protester is asked to leave the hearing room before the testimony of
American International Group (AIG) CEO Edward Liddy before the
House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Capitol Hill
in Washington, March 18, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Reed

[HardStarboard]

Drivel.....headline good; article a mishmash of excuses and praise for Obama and Geithner.

...at least we got a headline out of it!

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

These are the very people who removed shame from our culture.

According to liberals, shame is a psychological construct created by patriarchal misogynists meant to repress free and healthy expressions of desire.

Now they want AIG officials to feel shame.

Sheer irony.

[Ev Reeman]

Rush has it exactly right. AIG is a distraction and the liberals will continue this so they can get everything else they want to do done. Liberals are not only traitors they are evil.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“Democrats have embarked on a hurry-up effort to impose what amounts to confiscatory taxes on the bonuses,....”

Imagine what retroactive confiscatory taxes will do for confidence in U.S. financial markets.

[cweese]

Good lord! What in the world is Code Pink doing now? I thought their charter was to protest the war...are they now Bambi’s Ho’s to be used at his discretion for whatever protesting is in vogue?

[Jess Kitting]

From the article:

Republicans have made Geithner their top target, not surprising given Obama's continued high approval ratings.

Geithner didn't appoint himself Treasury Secretary.

Why not hold Obama responsible? If Republicans continue to cower from criticizing Obama (because of his dubious "high approval ratings"), they will never regain power.

When is someone going to start pointing out that the emporer has no clothes?

[evets]

[CRBDeuce]

It would be so great to see a 'solutions-oriented' hearing instead of the strawman, windmill-tilting, kabuki theatre hearings our Kongress Kritters perform for us! A real solution, a WINDFALL PROFITS tax on the Trillions of dollars in CDS gains by speculators, where the same investor was short the banks (pirate shorts) could net the Treasury enough to fill their coffers for a year. Solution

[snowtigger]

...are they now Bambi’s Ho’s to be used at his discretion for whatever protesting is in vogue?

Yes.

[neverdem]

Drivel.....headline good; article a mishmash of excuses and praise for Obama and Geithner.

Did we read the same story? They look either incompetent or complicit.

Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., won passage of a provision earlier this year that they said would have prevented the type of payments now at the center of a storm.

It was dropped without explanation in the final compromise on the economic stimulus measure, replaced by a less restrictive set of conditions backed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and accepted by the White House.

[HardStarboard]

>>>Did we read the same story?

Evidently not since I agree that the Administration, Dodd and anyone involved with the stimulus and AIG bailouts is "either incompetent or complicit".