Liars, cheats, and demagogues

This is the most venal, corrupt, and hypocritical lying sacks of politicians of  I have ever seen. Obama likens AIG to terrorists, doesn’t mention the campaign cash he received from said terrorists. Likewise Dodd, actually changed the law which would have banned such contributions in order to make it possible for AIG to give these bonuses that congress is now trying to tax expost facto (unconstitutionally) at 90%. Dodd outright lied about his role in this and then had to admit it. In fact he says the Obama administration made him do it.  The top two recipients of AIG bonuses? $100,000 each to both Obama and Dodd.

This is a mess made all the more distasteful by the phony populist outrage of Democrats who are proving themselves liars, cheats, and demagogues.

Topic No. 1 raised by Republicans during the House debate was the last-minute altering of a provision in Obama’s $787 billion stimulus law to cap executive compensation for firms receiving government bailouts.

The measure might have forestalled payment of the AIG bonuses.

But Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and the author of the provision, says the administration insisted that he modify his proposal so that it would only apply to payments agreed to in the future.

That, critics claim, cleared the way for the AIG payouts.

“The idea came from the administration,” Dodd said Thursday

Dodd said he was not aware of any AIG bonuses at the time the change was made. ~news.yahoo.com

Dodd says that he had no idea of what his edit would do?

So is Dodd lying or is Obama lying when they say they had no idea about these bonuses? Because either one or both are lying. The law wasn’t explicitly changed to allow these bonuses all by itself.

BURBANK, Calif. – President Barack Obama told Jay Leno on Thurday that he was stunned when he learned of the bonuses that bailed-out insurance giant AIG was paying its employees.

Obama told “The Tonight Show” host the payments raise moral and ethical problems — and vowed again to try to recoup the cash for taxpayers.

“We’re going to do everything we can to get these bonuses back”, he declared. ~news.yahoo.com

So neither the administration nor congressional democrats had any idea about these bonuses that they find so useful in demagogueing. But the issue is so horrifying that congress has now passed a 90% tax on them and other compensation for bailed out companies. Specifically how does this advance their supposed efforts to stabilize the financial system through this legislation? What message is congress and Obama sending with this witchhunt?

One consequence will be that every bank executive in America will try to repay his Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, money as rapidly as possible. The political punishment for accepting public money is becoming higher than the benefits of the extra capital cushion. According to Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovacevich, “If we were not forced to take the TARP money, we would have been able to raise private capital.” On Tuesday, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis joined the rush for the TARP exits, saying he hoped to pay back the $45 billion BofA has received by 2010 if not sooner. It’s hard to argue with the sentiment.

For the larger banking system, however, this is exactly the wrong time to be shedding capital. The main point of the TARP was to backstop the financial system against systemic failure. Treasury botched the roll out and the execution, but with the economy still in recession and housing prices still falling, banking losses will surely grow. Mr. Geithner has projected the need for more than $1 trillion more in public capital, and the FDIC has asked Congress to increase its credit line to as much as $500 billion.  ~online.wsj.com

This is how the opposite of a free market economy is run. This is where Obama and his democratic congress are taking us: towards a political economy. Where congress makes the decisions and then punishes others when they (meaning congress) screw up. This is how and why socialist economies are run into the ground.

Will Obama be paying a 90% tax on his bonus from AIG? Or will Dodd? No, that’s what the phony outrage is for to deflect criticism from their incompetence and stupidity.

Leave it to tax cheats, like Charles Rangel, to levy confiscatory and punative taxes and cloak it as ‘doing the people’s will’:

While the House legislation calls for a 90 percent tax, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he expected local and state governments to take the remaining 10 percent of the bonuses.

Rangel said the bill would apply to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among others, while excluding community banks and other smaller companies that have received less bailout money.

“The American people demand protection and that’s what we’re doing today,” he told the House. ~news.yahoo.com

Yes, my friends, the free market has failed us yet again. This just proves that the government needs to step in and take more control over the economy to quell the chaos. God help us.