This Saturday a bus filled with about 40 people pulled into a cul-de-sac in Fairfield County, Connecticut where a pastor and a steelworker disembarked and made their way to the front door of one of the large homes in the neighborhood. The protestors did not make it to the door however, as they were met by a security guard working to protect the home’s owner: AIG executive Doug Poling. The identities of most current and former AIG employees remain private, for now, but for those executives whose names are known, …
Whom It Really Targets The Hit List: H.R. 1586 retroactively taxes AIG employees who are due deferred compensation and would tax that compensation at a 90% rate. A Much Broader Sweep: Going forward, the bill also imposes a 90% federal tax rate on anyone employed by a company receiving $5 billion in TARP funds who has a family income over $250,000, individual income over $125,000 (if single or married but filing separately), or performance pay larger than adjusted gross income. What Defines a Bonus? Under H.R. 1586, a “bonus” is …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GoK0539Gl4[/youtube]As Congress builds its target list with any wage earner who makes over $250,000 and is even slightly tied to a company recieving TARP funds, let’s not forget who modified the $800 billion stimulus bill to formally recognize these bonuses in the first place. And this from Larry Kudlow: What it really shows is how the government has completely bungled the AIG takeover. Blame the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It also shows, once again, why the government shouldn’t run anything, because it cannot run anything. AIG should have …
In Thursday’s outraged House debate on the AIG bonuses, House Republicans rallied around a different approach. Members of both parties in the House and Senate have taken the tack of proposing to tax these bonuses through targeted, retroactive taxation. This is the substance of the bill that passed the House Thursday by a wide margin. This kind of oppressive use of government power to thieve private property is so unprincipled as to make the past behavior of Wall Street tycoons seem saintly in comparison. The House Republicans, including minority leader …
Speaking to a crowd of 1,500 supporters in Costa Mesa, California, about the bonuses given to employees of 80% taxpayer owned AIG, President Barack Obama said: “I know a lot of you are outraged about this. I’m outraged, too.” We’ll leave for others to decide the level of Obama’s outrage, especially considering reports this morning that the Obama Administration found out about the bonuses on February 28, not March 10, as they originally claimed. But what we would like to see some genuine outrage over are the millions of taxpayer dollars going …
According to Politico, CNN’s Dana Bash and Ted Barrett reported yesterday on how the $800 billion Stimulus bill managed to not only protect AIG’s bonuses; but a provision that would’ve prevented the executive bonuses was stripped. The obvious question is why these protections were put in place by Congress for AIG’s executive bonuses? A stunning comment from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) says it all: Frankly it was such a rush — we’re talking about the stimulus bill now — to get it passed, I didn’t have time …
“If you don’t return it on your own, we will do it for you.” So warned Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) referring to the $165 million in bonuses paid to employees of the 80% taxpayer owned insurance company AIG. And how did Schumer plan to force those employees to give their compensation back? With a specially targeted 91% tax. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) later upped the bidding to 95% but Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) refused to be out demagogued and proposed a full 100% tax. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) then demanded …
As President Obama and Congress are starting to learn, it isn’t easy running American businesses from Washington. This week AIG threw bonuses in the faces of their new CEO’s on Capitol Hill, after Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) specifically legislated that they could do just that. Senator Dodd is apparently wishing he hadn’t made that decision now. Now we learn that the auto companies that American taxpayers are bailing out an alarming rate are being forced into more bad decisions by lawmakers. Their new “bosses” on Capitol Hill are forcing them …
