Democrat Senator Chris Dodd Tuesday regarding language added to the stimulus bill last month that exempted all executive bonuses made before February 11, 2009 (from Fox News):
“When the language went to the conference and came back, there was different language,” he said then. “I can tell you this much, when my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it did.”
Democrat Senator Chris Dodd Wednesday regarding language added to the stimulus bill last month that exempted all executive bonuses made before February 11, 2009:
“As many know, the administration was, among others, not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications to it. They came to us, our staff, and asked for changes, and the changes at the time did not seem that obnoxious or onerous.”
Dodd said the argument put forward by Treasury was that a “flood of lawsuits” would come forward if the change was not made.
When asked how administration officials have this kind of leverage over members of Congress, Dodd said, “The administration has veto power…No one suggested a veto to me, I don’t want to imply that to you. But certainly that’s not an insignificant tool.”
So, Dodd has essentially admitted he lied when he said he had nothing to do with the language that exempted the bonuses, and as a bonus, he implicated the Obama administration as the impetus behind this change.
That’s at least two liars.
All of the righteous indignation the administration and congress is currently spreading over the airways… now that we know they knew about this all along… that’s fraud.
Hypocrites? Oh yeah. Where shall we begin…
How about complaining that failed executives would dare accept a bonus while seeing nothing wrong with accepting a congressional pay raise after, at the very least, contributing to this economic mess and arguably being the major cause.
How about the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth over the use of $165m of tax payer dollars to pay these bonuses, no small piece of change for sure, only a few short days after dismissing criticism over the pork laden stimulus and omnibus bills as petty bickering over mere millions of dollars in a billion, even trillion, dollar world.
How about complaining about the treatment of terrorists under the Bush administration then completely dismissing concern for the safety of AIG execs, who apparently have been threatened with such humanitarian punishment as hanging with piano wire.
Yep, this AIG scandal is exposing all sorts of liars, hypocrites and frauds… keep that in mind in 2010.
By the way, while we can be glad Dodd has come clean on this, let’s not forget that this stimulus package was pushed through by Pelosi, Reid, nearly every Democrat, a few Republicans and KP Obama… no wonder they didn’t want anyone to read it first.
You want to be outraged about something, don’t direct your anger at the execs that are receiving the bonus. Admit it, if you were getting this bonus you wouldn’t give it back either. Get angry at Congress and Obama for not only allowing this to happen.. they made it happen.
Update: Almost forgot… as angry as Dodd and KP Obama are over these execs getting bonuses from AIG, I haven’t heard anything about them returning any of the campaign donations they received from AIG.
