"The American people have said no, and they have said, 'Hell no, give us our money back,'" -Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D.
While 165 million dollars is but a minuscule amount in the grand-scheme of things, the AIG bonuses has still caused a sense of injustice to manifest the hearts of many Americans. (Sorry if that sounds odd, I just got the sudden urge to use the word "manifest".) Yet, because of this public outrage, the U.S. House of Reps has voted today to heavily tax the "AIG bailout bonuses".
"The only way to get their money back is to tax it back," said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y.
Approved with a vote of 328 to 93, this bill would slap a 90% tax on the bonus money that the AIG executives received. Yet with "justice served", politicians are still pointing their fingers at one another for "making loopholes" that allowed AIG to even give out these bonuses. A small provision in last month's stimulus bill which resulted in this loophole was part of a measure written by Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, which gave many house Republicans a target to shoot at.
"Listen, this bill is nothing more then an attempt for everyone to cover their butt up here on Capitol Hill," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "It's full of loopholes."
Personally, I think this is not a time for attacking the other side because we are having economic problems (read: crisis). I think I've said it before in previous posts but I'll say it again. Right now isn't exactly the time to find people to blame. At least they managed to agree to get AIG to return some of the money. But then again, the public is so much in support of AIG returning the bonuses that not voting for this bill could have been really bad for many of these politicians who, after all, need to keep their ratings up for reelection.
Photo (and most of my other photos) from ABCnews.com
