Word: democratizers
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Barely a day goes by on Capitol Hill without some politician expressing a good measure of righteous indignation. It's less common for virtually every member of Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, to have the same target for his or her carefully calibrated anger. But when all that talk actually gets channeled into immediate action, then you know that something really historic is happening in Washington - and that Congress (and the public) may well come to regret...
...Democrat Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, echoed those concerns, arguing that pursuing restitution by other means was preferable. House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel also opposed using the tax code "as a political weapon" until the Speaker sat on him to write the legislation passed Thursday in the House. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus defended his measure, saying that by expanding the pool of bonus recipients to all institutions that have received $100 million from the government, the legislation would likely survive judicial challenge. "We've pushed the constitutional question pretty hard with constitutional...
...full-scale rebellion. Yet Geithner, embarrassed for discovering the bonuses so late, plans to dock AIG that much out of the next $30 billion in bailout funding when it is delivered - which amounts to a mere 0.1% of the total AIG has received. Assorted Senators, from New York Democrat Chuck Schumer to Montana Democrat Max Baucus and Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, have proposed a number of tax and legal schemes to snatch back the bonus bucks from AIG FP executives - 73 of whom got payouts of $1 million or more, according to New York State attorney general Andrew Cuomo. (Read...
...possibly helping explain Treasury's leaden-footed reaction to the AIG bonuses, which were first reported in January. A former Treasury official blames Geithner for a "strategic hesitation that has really affected the confidence index, not just in the financial marketplace but in the political marketplace." A veteran Washington Democrat was more direct: "He's not a wartime consigliere...
...quickly with the existence of large retention bonuses for AIG employees in the Financial Products division is perplexing. On Jan. 27, Bloomberg News reported that AIG has offered "about $450 million in retention pay" to the AIG FP staff, a program that AIG confirmed. Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, knew about the bonuses two weeks earlier, on Jan. 15, when he met with Liddy, and the Congressman never kept his displeasure secret. Nor was he alone in raising alarms. In January, Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called the bonuses a "waste of taxpayer money...