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Livid Democrats demand AIG return bailout bonuses

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-18 07:56

WASHINGTON -- Talking tougher by the hour, livid Democrats confronted beleaguered insurance giant AIG with an ultimatum Tuesday: Give back $165 million in post-bailout bonuses or watch Congress tax it away with emergency legislation.

Republicans declared the Democrats were hardly blameless, accusing them of standing by while the bonus deal was cemented and suggesting that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could and should have done more.

A man passes an AIG office building Monday, March 16, 2009 in New York. American International Group Inc. used more than $90 billion in federal aid to pay out foreign and domestic banks, some of whom had received their own multibillion-dollar US government bailouts. [Agencies]

While the White House expressed confidence in Geithner, it was clearly placing the responsibility for how the matter was handled on his shoulders.

Fresh details, meanwhile, pushed AIG outrage ever higher: New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo reported that 73 separate company employees received bonus checks of $1 million or more last Friday. This at a company that was failing so spectacularly the government felt the need to prop it up with a $170 billion bailout.

The financial bailout program remains politically unpopular and has been a drag on Barack Obama's new presidency, even though the plan began under his predecessor, George W. Bush. The White House is well aware of the nation's bailout fatigue -- anger that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have gone to prop up financial institutions that made poor decisions, while many others who have done no wrong have paid the price.

The administration wouldn't be pleased to hear what Maria Panza-Villa, of Hillsboro, Ore., had to say. "Wasn't Obama supposed to fix this?" asked the mother of two who said she has lost three jobs since November as one employer after another went under.

AIG chief executive Edward Liddy can expect a verbal pummeling Wednesday when he testifies before a House subcommittee.

On Capitol Hill late Tuesday, House Democrats directed three powerful committees to come up with legislation this week to authorize Attorney General Eric Holder to recover massive bonus payments made by companies like the ones paid last week by American International Group Inc.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, suggested that if the AIG executives had any integrity, they would return the $165 million in bonus money. One leading Republican even suggested they might honorably kill themselves, then said he didn't really mean it.

Whatever the process, lawmakers of all stripes said, the money -- generally "retention payments" to keep prized employees -- belongs back in the government's hands.

"Recipients of these bonuses will not be able to keep all of their money," declared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in an unusually strong threat delivered on the Senate floor.

"If you don't return it on your own, we will do it for you," echoed Chuck Schumer of New York.

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