Must-read of the day

Ed Morrissey on “The futile arrogance of [Obama’s] AIG outrage”:

The nasty little secret at the center of all the outrage is that the Obama administration could have stopped the bonuses by simply stopping the bailout. They could have forced AIG into bankruptcy, which would have voided the company’s contractual compensation obligations. Instead, the Obama administration chose to inject liquidity into AIG, following the lead of the Bush administration, which had done the same thing. That kept AIG’s doors open, and therefore kept its contractual obligations to its employees intact.

Now Obama is outrageously outraged, as Allahpundit put it yesterday, but over what? A company complying with its contractual obligations? AIG has no more right to abrogate those contracts than any other employer would with its union contracts. Whether or not the compensation agreements reflect wisdom and managerial brilliance, they exist β€” and as a matter of law, AIG has to honor the commitments. Screeching about the bonuses now is not just futile, but a demonstration of the arrogance involved in these bailouts. If the government wants to tear up all the contracts, it will have to nationalize AIG and get Congress to approve it.

In the future, we can avoid having taxpayer dollars go to Wall Street bonuses by not bailing out private companies with taxpayer dollars.

Read the whole thing.

Related: Chris Dodd: For AIG bonuses before he was against them.

Wow … who’d have thought that was possible? / sarc

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