Where's My Bonus?

by Christina Hazelwood
Our federal government, in the form of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), seems to manage to find every single dime of income I earn and tax me on it. Our government finds money I did not know I had and even manages to find money I never got, in the form of complex foreign earnings from my mutual funds. Yet our government, in the form of the Obama administration, could not figure out that the executives of American International Group (AIG) were about to receive giant bonuses resulting from taxpayer bail out funds?

The U.S. government, who manages to create and monitor a behemoth tax code, head off terrorist attacks, negotiate with foreign dictators, enter into complex trade agreements and bring about global financial collapse, is unable to negotiate an ethical arrangement with an American company that is on the brink of bankruptcy as it offers up more than 20 billion dollars in low-cost loans? I think I smell a rat.

The Obama administration claims that it cannot "violate" contractual agreements. No, but it can negotiate them. Let me see, I am a million-dollar executive and the federal government waves $85 billion under my nose (that was the first bail out). The only requirement to keeping your company afloat and keeping your million-dollar job is that you don’t get bonuses this year. Do you agree? What’s the exec going to say, no? Fine. You’re fired. Which one of you other million-dollar executives would like to step up and take this money?

How about this? Instead of offering low-cost loans to greedy executives who drove their company into the toilet, offer it to any American who has a job.

And by the way the purpose of the bonus money – retention. The federal government, who owns 80 percent of AIG, is paying the bonuses in order to keep these greedy, no good executives on a job that they have just proved incompetent at. Did I mention that AIG is an insurance company? Are you beginning to see a connection here? Please refer to my previous articles if you do not notice one.

If actions like this had been taken under the George Bush administration, one would have seen a protest and an uprising. Yet American voters are bedazzled by Obama’s smooth, cool presence. After a fiasco like this, Obama continues to enjoy an approval rating, per a CBS poll, of 62 percent. Love is definitely blind and I think it’s deaf and dumb too.

Voters were aghast at what they claimed was the Bush administration selling out to big oil. No doubt, there were connections there. But at least, Bush was selling out to Americans. Obama is selling our country to the Chinese and a handful of Europeans and trust me folks, these financial maneuvers are going to come back and bite us in the behind. When the Chinese own half of our country and come to collect, there won’t be a darn thing President Obama, congress or the rest of the world can do about it.

Now I understand we are in an economic crisis and I understand that measures need to be taken. I recommend belt tightening, moderation and toughing it out, not selling out our country to China and then give away bonuses to executives who helped make it all happen. But I know, he does it all so smoothly in his silver-tongued manner, unlike the fumbling George Bush, so that makes it all alright.

Associated Links

$20 Million For AIG Executives
62 Percent Approve of Obama