Who's Looking Out For You?

It turns out that Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and the largest single recipient of campaign contributions from AIG, has found himself embroiled in the recent AIG bonus scandal and is quickly trying to reverse course, in both his policies and rhetoric.

First, Dodd inserted language into last month's “stimulus” package that specifically prohibits the government from stopping the taxpayer-funded $165 million in executive bonuses at AIG to happen. Now that there is a political firestorm rising over these very bonuses, he is calling for a 91% excise tax on those bonuses.

According to a Fox Business report:

"While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law."

When trillions of your hard-earned tax dollars are at stake, we need leadership that does not reward political allies. The American people are struggling, and despite what rhetoric you now hear from Senator Dodd and the Democrats who proposed and led the charge on approving this so-called “stimulus” package, they were clearly not looking out for you.