AIG Executive Bonuses

AIG, a company that recently received a $170 billion bailout from the tax payers, will be giving out $165 million in post-bailout bonuses to their executives.

First, Obama wanted to change their contracts to take away the bonuses but now they are discussing an emergency bill that would tax their bonus money at 100%.

In fact, Chris Dodd (D) has completely flip-flopped on the issue. He specifically put a clause in the $787 billion stimulus bill that provided an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” and now he’s saying we should tax the bonuses at 100% to get the money back (by the way, Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations - $103,100 – maybe he should give that money back to the tax payer as well).

So what should we do?

It is illegal for the government to go and change contracts like that. Retroactive taxes are also illegal – so if they try to do an emergency tax on the bonus money, they’ll be breaking the law as well.

The other option is to just let it go and let the executives keep their million dollar bonuses.

Another shining moment for the Obama administration.