Home
Who Takes The Blame For The Bonus Backlash?
Who ultimately is to blame for the AIG bonus backlash? The President, his Administration, Congress or AIG management?
Some of the numbers might surprise you when a recent poll was conducted nationwide on this subject that has caused the ire of the American people.
When Americans were asked who handled the situation satisfactorily, only President Obama came out with positive ratings, 54%-39%. What makes this interesting is that Americans felt his Treasury Secretary handled the situation poorly by a rate of 54% negative - 28% positive. Just about the complete opposite of his boss, President Obama. Congress had even worse numbers with 65% saying they handled this crisis poorly and AIG management had the worst numbers with 80% of Americans saying they handled the situation poorly.
It is interesting to note that there was a provision added to the bailout bill by Congress that allowed these bonus payments to be made. Yet when asked who is to blame for the bonus payments 46% of Americans said the AIG Executives were ultimately to blame, while only 19% blamed Congress and 8% Treasury Secretary Geithner.
While AIG is to blame for these payments, it was not Mr. Liddy who had just recently taken over AIG when the payments were made who should have been humiliated before the Congressional panels. This is not a time to play politics in front of the American people for ones own political gain. Congressional Democrats demanded this bill and passed it without Republican support, and President Obama signed it allowing these payments to be made. There is much blame to pass along at many levels, and the American people need to start watching more closely to exactly what is happening in our nations Capitol.
