Whose Money Is It Anyway? AIG Exec's? Tax Payer's? Hannity and Limbaugh's?

Showing The Right's Disdain For
The Poor and The Middle Class

Do the AIG people who got bonuses actually believe in "trickle down" economics? Do they believe in anything besides themselves? Do they care that the entire country looks upon them as less than pond scum? As Republicans and Democrats alike scream "foul!" at AIG's largesse with government bailout money, it's hard to conceive anyone standing up for the ones who got the bonuses. Enter Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Plum Line Greg Sargent's blog:

Split Emerging Between Conservative Media And GOP Leadership On AIG Mess

Mitch McConnell recently blasted AIG’s bonuses as an “outrage.” John Boehner said that the “American people are rightly outraged.” And Eric Cantor bemoaned the “stunning lack of accountability” on AIG’s part.

But...

Rush Limbaugh recently said: “I am all for the AIG bonuses” and attacked the Obama administration for trying to undo them. He also blasted Dem efforts to get the names of the AIG bonus recipients as “McCarthyism.”

Fox News followed suit, also comparing Dems to “Joe McCarthy.” And Sean Hannity has now derided efforts to tax the execs by saying: “In other words, we’re going to just steal their money.”

Yes, the bonuses were a direct slap in the face to the poor and the middle class. AIG was hideously stupid in presenting them without any attempt to seek government approval. The money they gave out as "rewards" was simply not theirs to give. They did not earn it. It was loaned to them by the government and, by extension, the United States taxpayers.

Loans are never free. Talk to the people whose homes are being foreclosed on. The largesse of the American taxpayer should never be discounted: it comes with a certain condition THAT SHOULD BE EVIDENT without putting it in writing: ithe money loaned to AIG was money to help a business pay off debts. Bonuses are not debts. A bonus may be promised to an employee, but it is not in any way considered a debt. A bonus is just what it means: a stipend above and beyond a salary to be given out at the discretion of the employer for employees he deems worthy of something extra. A bonus (we learned in school) was NEVER to be counted upon because it is discretionary. The Puritan ethic allows us to strive for a bonus, but comes with the caveat that we should be proud in the fact that we earned more than a bonus. We earned self-respect in doing our best.

And let's face it: the American public is O.K. with athletes and actors getting enormous contracts but they aren't entertained by executives getting extra money for doing something they didn't do: MAKE money for the company.

And now Rush and Sean want us to believe that these "AIG Bonusers" actually deserve the loaned money and that they are being singled out by the government for the sake of persecution. They are attacking Democrats as "McCarthyites." Hmmm. Strange. The McCarthy I learned about was more in line with Rush and Sean in the department of ideology. Joe McCarthy persecuted people for being what he considered un-American. Limbaugh and Hannity have called people un-American countless times. Now it's un-American to loan a business money and tell them what they can do with that loan.

High finance and politics - they're both getting wierder and wierder.