aig

For those who’ve been wondering whether Congress can really just vent its anger at those $165 million in AIG bonuses by levying a 90 percent tax on the bonuses of all executives who receive bailout money, the answer is: probably, yes.

The outrage over AIG bonuses is dying down, but it is only being replaced by a blame game. According to critics, President Obama went too far in his populist pronouncements against banks, and his administration, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is bungling the rescue effort. Banking executives have piled on, telling The Washington Post [...]

This is more embarassing than damaging, but it turns out that Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan and co-chair of its Af-Pak strategy review, was on the board of AIG from 2001 to 2008. Here’s the what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did- it-know-it:
Obama named Holbrooke as a special envoy on Jan. 22, two days after [...]

Patrick O’Connor explains why Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) broke with the rest of the House leadership and voted for the punitive AIG bonus tax.
Cantor is playing the outside game. Since becoming whip in the wake of a second straight anti-GOP wave election in 2008, the Virginian has quickly become the public face of House Republicans [...]

When the White House economic team last month rejected a Senate-passed stimulus amendment that would have taxed bailed-out companies at 35 percent for 2008 bonuses, sponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) vowed he’d be back later for another try.
Today, he made good on that promise.

As Weigel pointed out earlier, the GOP appears poised to make a strategy of blaming Democrats — notably Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (Conn.) — for allowing the AIG bonuses that have become so controversial this week.
We pointed out a few reasons earlier today why Dodd doesn’t bear the blame (at least no more [...]

Mary’s blog post this morning on The Washington Post’s report today that Fannie Mae is going to pay bonuses to four top executives offers a test of  the truism that failure pays in Washington as well as Wall Street. Case in point: Fannie Mae vice president Kenneth Bacon who is slated to receive $1 [...]

From the anti-AIG bonus tax statement of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who is no one’s idea of a disloyal Republican:
The blame for these bonuses rests solely with the Bush and Obama Administrations and those who march in lock step with their irresponsible policies.
The post-facto excommunication of President George W. Bush continues.

In the end a slight majority of Republicans opposed levying a 90 percent tax on bonuses for companies that take TARP money — another signal of how complicated the populist politics of this issue are for the GOP.
Republicans are pushing two arguments now. One, that the scandal is not over until names are named (hint: [...]

Republicans are coming to the House floor to argue for and against a resolution that’s preceding the surtax on AIG bonuses, with most of the speakers coming out against it. A rationale used by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), and Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) is that the bill contains language that credits [...]