Obama, Congress knew about AIG bonuses for months (Obama continues the lies)

ap ^ | 3/17/2009 | JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

[tobyhill]

Cue the outrage. For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.

Why the sudden furor, just weeks after Barack Obama's team paid out $30 billion in additional aid to the company? So far, the administration has been unable to match its actions to Obama's tough rhetoric on executive compensation. And Congress has been unable or unwilling to restrict bonuses for bailout recipients, despite some lawmakers' repeated efforts to do so.

The situation has the White House and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the defensive. The administration was caught off guard Tuesday trying to explain why Geithner had waited until last Wednesday to call AIG chief executive Edward M. Liddy and demand that the bonus payments be restructured.

Neither Obama nor Geithner learned of the impending bonus payments until last week, senior administration officials told The Associated Press late Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity about internal discussions.

[Lorianne]

No, you must be mistaken. According to this inteview, nobody in Congress knew about this until about a week ago.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2208720/posts

[WesternPacific]

I believe Dodds inserted a provision into the Stim. bill to protect the exect’s bonuses. He now has no recollection of his own provision but....it is within the bill.

[SloopJohnB]

Rush just pointed out Congress has known for a year.

[baltoga]

I’m sure the administration’s response will be as follow:

“I knew before I didn’t know”

[tobyhill]

***AIG’s plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars were publicized last fall, when Congress started asking questions about expensive junkets the company had sponsored.***

Since he only learned about it a week ago I guess he's just stupid. He just signs bills into law without knowing what he signing. He even accepts $101,000 from the company but still knows nothing about them.

[Recovering_Democrat]

This outing of Hussein’s lies coming from the Ass Press????

I am, no kidding, literally STUNNED. I never thought I would read an ASS Press even remotely critical of their Messiah.

[tobyhill]

That selective memory is a terrible thing to waste.

[Krankor]

This could the beginning of Obama’s Watergate. What would you call it?

[bigbob]

Lies for the purpose of distracting attention from all his other, daily, screw-ups.

The Snake and the Forehead must have discovered that demagoging the AIG bonuses issue polled well.

[SERKIT]

The teleprompter knew.

[Fee]

Bonus issue will end any recovery and may be the incident that will trigger the collapse of US financial system. AIG was propped up by feds to buy time to resolve the huge liabilities of the derivative market. A market that in 2005 Congressional hearing that Greenspan and SEC admit they do not understand. Experts estimate the liabilities to be 55 trillion minimum to 1.5 quadrillion. The only people who can navigate the US out of this financial time bomb is the experts in AIG. If Obama cannot stop the bonuses, the infuriated Congress will stop bailout of AIG thus leading to US collapse. On the otherhand if Congress punishes AIG thru taxes, the experts in AIG will walk, leaving the US with no experts to lead us out of the derivative mess thus triggering a financial crisis that can lead to a financial meltdown. No matter how we feel about the bonuses (majority anti, some pro) AIG/derivative mess is one of the most potent financial time bomb in the US economy and Congress inadvertently is playing with the fuse.

[jveritas]

This journalist may have greatly jeopardized her carrier at AP because she wrote about the truth.

[tobyhill]

Obama lying to the public is different than lying under oath so the first thing needs to be done is put him under oath and ask him straight up when he knew.

[motor_racer]

“What did the President know, and when did he know it?”

[jveritas]

55 trillion dollars? That is 4 times the size of our GDP and equal to the world total GDP.

1.5 quadrillion dollar? that is 1,500 trillion dollars. That is all the total wealth in the US and the world.

[autumnraine]

Didn’t Geitner WRITE THE BILL they are talking about? So he doesn’t know how to do his taxes on Turbo Tax and he didn’t write the bill he was heralded as needing a crook in the IRS office because he was the “genius” that wrote the bill he claims he didn’t know what was in.

[jaz.357]

I believe Dodds inserted a provision into the Stim. bill to protect the exect’s bonuses.

HEY DODD! INSERT THIS!

[Tarpon]

Chris Dodd knew, he put the fix in the stimulus bill.

Yes they knew, and yes they knew they had LEGAL contracts.

Allow government to break LEGAL contracts, destroy freedom.

The real outrage should be directed at the government causing AIG to fail with their home loan policy.

[SittinYonder]

Lies for the purpose of distracting attention from all his other, daily, screw-ups.

I think it's a whole lot of to-do about something they were fully aware of in an effort to distract attention from the fact that in two weeks the House and Senate are planning a vote on the Obama 2010 budget.

That thing wasn't going well as people realized the details of it, so now they've manufactured a new news story to keep the budget out of the headlines.