Demorats

No, Not a Typo

While the Party of Hoover was in power, congressional members from that side of the aisle garnered millions in campaign contributions from the very Wall Street characters we are now bailing out. To be fair, there are an equal number of Democrats taking these legal bribes, and rececently it is the left side who have been the most egregious violators of the public trust. When the mantel of leadership passed hands, it seems, so did the hat.

Since AIG is already in the barrel, let’s take a few more pokes into the bunghole and discect a honeypot scandal. According to OpenSecrets.org, over $9 million has been contributed by AIG to various politicians, placing American International Group at number 79 on the list of top 100 political contributors of all time. AIG is not alone, and neither are they the worst offender. Just for grins, take a look at some others:

#4 Goldman Sachs
#15 Citigroup
#25 JP Morgan Chase
#30 Morgan Stanley
#40 Bank of America
#52 Merrill Lynch
#72 MBNA Corp. (part of Bank of America since June of 2005)
#75 Freddie Mac

Business as Usual Inside the Beltway

But since they are in the news, let us take a deeper look. AIG’s contributions over the past 10 years have been non-partisan, almost equally balanced between political parties in all but two election cycles. In 2002, the year in which the company made more and larger campaign contributions than any previous, their bent was overwhelmingly Republican ($1,371,840 to the R’s and $894,517 to the D’s). Then in 2008, a year in which the company donated a paltry $856,000, the D’s got almost twice that offered to the R’s.

Since I’m certainly not a supporter of the Party of Hoover, I find it important to report that over $200K was donated to the George W. Bush war chest, meaning young Shrub himself was one of the top targets for AIG money. John McCain is also in the top 10, gleaning almost $100K.

But Demorats have been the greatest beneficiaries of AIG’s generosity over the past 10 years, and at a whopping $281,038, the top rat award goes to Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Other D’s on the list include Charles Schumer, D-NY at $111,875, Barak Obama at $110,332, and Senate Finance Committee chair, Max Baccus, D-MT, at about $90K. AIG is the single largest contributor to Baccus.

Now here comes the hypocrisy. On Monday March 16th, Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, is quoted as saying:

"This is another outrageous example of executives - including those whose decisions were responsible for the problems that caused AIG's collapse - enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers. A car mechanic or teacher in Connecticut shouldn’t have to subsidize the bad decisions of these executives. Executives at other companies receiving TARP funds have voluntarily foregone bonuses - there's no reason why those at AIG shouldn't do the same."

What a Difference 48 Hours Makes

On March 18th, in an interview with CNN, Dodd admitted he had a hand in altering the language of the stimulus bill, removing the bonus caps and allowing AIG to “pay controversial bonuses to its employees.”

Me thinks the Capitol could stand some fumigating...

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