The Wall Street Journal just reported that President Obama is trying to avert a political firestorm by directing his Treasury secretary to take every legal step possible to stop AIG from awarding $165 million in bonuses.
The president and many in Congress are doing what they do best: seeking to put the blame on someone else while pretending they had nothing to do with the problem at hand. President Obama, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) all voted for the TARP bill that gave the Treasury secretary billions of dollars to allocate with no congressional oversight or accountability.
How the chickens have come home to roost — again. I despised TARP when first proposed by then-Secretary Henry Paulson, as I do now: billions of taxpayer dollars down the hole with no oversight. Now the same politicians who wrote the legislation that led to millions of our tax dollars being wasted refuse to look in the mirror and acknowledge that their haste to create a new multibillion-dollar program was done without the proper vetting and safety mechanisms built in to protect the people they ostensibly represent.
For his indignation and outrage, I wonder if the president will remind the American people of his support of the legislation that brought us this mess.
Don’t hold your breath.